The Woman in Black
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Kronos' wife turns out to be living proof.
1. Chapter 1

The Woman in Black

Author's note: I decided to do another AU story in which the Four Horsemen are alive in the present time and more or less past their 'angry adolescence', and explore another idea on what kind of woman Kronos would get stuck with for a wife. Hope you all enjoy.

It was the year 1857, and Kronos had just rode into a new town, escaping a lynch mob some 20 miles back after an ill fated attempt at a bank robbery. It was night, he was dead tired and all he wanted was a drink of whiskey, a woman, and a bed to lay down on, and all in that order; it was fortunate for him that he had stopped right near a saloon with a hotel on its second floor, so if he played his cards right, he would be getting all three. Tying up his horse, he walked over to the doors of the saloon and he heard something that sounded promising to his ears.

Pushing the doors open, he walked in and saw up on a stage at the far end of the room, a group of women with their hair in curls, each with a big red feather in their hair and they were wearing big, colorful dresses and dark stockings and button up dress shoes while they were doing the cancan. Looking around the place he saw that there were a few men at a couple of the tables, most of them were playing cards, a couple others were watching the dancing girls, and the rest were drinking too much to see anything. As he took a couple of steps into the saloon, an all too familiar buzzing sensation went off in the far corner of his brain.

He looked around to see who it was. None of the men at the tables looked up from their cards, and the man pouring the drinks didn't pay him any mind either, nor did the man who was playing the piano next to the stage. Kronos couldn't figure out where it was coming from, and then he looked to the stage and he got his answer when he saw one of the dancing girls appear to lose her balance and she stumbled back and looked around the room. Oh, he thought to himself, this was going to be interesting.

The woman looked to be about 25, she was about as tall and built the same as the other dancing girls, though where the other women had blonde or dark hair, hers was a light red that like the other girls', was in curls that came down to the bottom of her neck, and she wore a big black feather in it. She wore a big red dress that sparkled, with a red and black skirt, and though she'd lost hold of the bottom of it, Kronos would swear if she lifted it up, there'd be a black girdle underneath it. The woman tried to get back into the step of the dance and ignore whatever had caused her to lose her place to begin with, but she didn't catch up with the others too well, though she acted like she did. Kronos watched her with a growing anticipation, and a sinister grin formed on his face. He had a good idea which one of these women he would be paying for for the night.

When the music ended, most of the dancers disappeared backstage, but the redhead stepped down from the stage and over to the bar and asked the man to pour her a drink.

"You already had one tonight," he told her.

"I know, but I'm not feeling well," she replied, "My head's hurting again."

"You and your headaches, I think half the time you make them up to drink me out of my best stuff," he replied as he poured a beer of mug and all but threw it at her.

She drank the beer and put her hand to her forehead and told the bartender that she was going up to her room for the night.

"Already?"

"You got as many customers _now_," she told him, "As you're going to have, they've seen me dance, if they want to see me do anymore, they can pay the ten dollars and you can send them on up."

With that, she started up the stairs leading to the second floor where the hotel rooms were kept. Kronos got up from the table and went over to the bar and after drinking two whiskeys he asked how much it cost for the girl who had just gone up the stairs for the night.

"For the whole night she's ten, for an hour she's two, give her the money when you're finished," he told Kronos.

He nodded in agreement and found out which room she occupied on the second floor. He went up the stairs and to the door the bartender had told him about, and he knocked.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"A paying customer, that's who," he answered.

"For the night?"

"Yes."

The door opened and the woman stood in the doorway, looking tired and rubbing one eye.

"Well come on in, stranger," she said.

The tone of her voice could be enough to freeze somebody to death. Kronos walked into the room and she shut the door behind him.

"So what did you have in mind for the night?" she asked.

"Depends," Kronos said, "On what I get for my money's worth."

"You paid for the whole night?" he nodded, "Then anything goes."

And if Kronos hadn't been on the dead run for 12 hours, that would sound inviting, but in all honesty he was about ready to drop from exhaustion.

While the woman waited for him to answer, she went over behind a changing screen and took off her costume, piece by piece she threw them over the screen for him to catch. First the black button up shoes, then the black stockings, the black garters, her petticoat, the dress itself, then the black girdle, the black corset, and finally her long white knickers.

"Is that it?" Kronos asked, "Or do you have anything else on behind that screen?"

"Oh," she commented innocently enough, "Just one more little thing."

"Oh this I can't wait to see," Kronos replied, "What is it?"

She stepped out from behind the screen wearing a flowing white nightgown that had been cut off at the knees.

"Like it?" she asked.

"Very much," Kronos said as he inched towards her, his hands clenching and unclenching again, "Now take it off."

She laughed and replied, "Not so fast, you have to catch me first."

Kronos lunged at her but she escaped his clutches at the last second and ran around the large bed, laughing, with him at her heels. He chased her around the bed, over the trunk, behind the dresser, over to the window where she tripped Kronos and sent him sprawling out on the balcony. Picking himself up he stepped back into the room and climbed over the furniture that stood between the two of them and he grabbed her and pinned her down on the bed, with her still laughing. Kronos flipped her over onto her stomach and started pulling open the buttons of her gown, and was completely oblivious to her reaching out to the dresser, and picking up a large brown whiskey jug, which she cracked him over the head with and he fell down.

* * *

He woke up the next morning, curled in a ball in the middle of the bed, every part of his body hurting, and he couldn't even remember where he was or how he had gotten there. Sitting up in bed, he looked around the room and saw standing by the door, a woman wearing a long purple dress, white gloves, brown shoes and a dark purple hat that covered her hair. The way she was dressed up, she looked about like a schoolmarm, and suddenly Kronos got the idea he was in the wrong room.

"Excuse me," he said as he tried to get up.

"You never did tell me your name," the woman said.

"What?"

The woman gave a sort of laugh and pulled the hat off her head, revealing her long red locks.

"You!" Kronos said as he sprang up in bed.

"Ay, me," she replied cockily, "In the flesh."

"Not since last night," Kronos smugly commented, "What in the hell are you doing in that?"

"You like it?" she asked as she turned around to show him the full view of it.

"It does alright," Kronos said.

"Easy to say when you're not the one wearing it," she told him, "I for one have about had it with these things."

What she did next would clear her of anybody ever worrying she was a schoolmarm. She pulled up her dress and the petticoat underneath that and revealed the whalebone hoop that gave the dress its shape and she removed it.

"In the daytime I might be a lady," she told him, "But nobody said I had to be a stiff one." She dropped the petticoat and dress back into place, "How's it look now?"

"Much better," Kronos said as he got up from the bed. He walked over beside her and when she wasn't looking, he pinched her. She screamed and jumped so high she could've touched the ceiling.

"Much more effective too," Kronos noted.

She turned around and glared at him and brought up her pointed shoe and kicked him in the seat and knocked him onto the floor.

"Now," she said firmly, "How about the money you owe me for last night?"

"Last night?" Kronos repeated, "Last night you conked me on the head with a jug of whiskey!"

"You paid for a night with me and that's what you got, and now you have to pay for it whether you liked it or not," she told him.

Kronos got to his feet and pulled a ten dollar note out of his pocket and gave it to her.

"You must be running this racket a long time to have it down this well," he commented.

"On the contrary," she said, "I only started working here a few days ago."

"Really?" Kronos couldn't believe it.

"Yeah, I came over on the train from Agua Dulce," she said.

"Well where am I now?" Kronos asked.

"In a hotel room."

"No, I mean where am I?"

"In Texas."

"No, no, no!" Kronos was about to the point of jumping up and down now. "What town am I in?"

"What difference does it make?" she asked, "Texas is a big state, you see one of their towns you've seen them all."

"You don't even know what town you're working in," Kronos said, "I bet you wouldn't know it even if you were looking at the sign. Can you even read?"

She looked appalled when he said that.

"I resent that!" she said, "I certainly _can_ read!"

"Oh I don't believe you," Kronos took another note out of his pocket and gave it to her, "If you can read, tell me what that says."

"It says," she held it up, "The Government of Texas, Treasury Department, Houston, Texas, Fifty Doll…WHOA!"

Kronos about threw himself into a seizure, rushing to shut her up and the two fell to the floor in the process.

"Will you stop that? What's the matter with you?" he asked.

"That's a fifty dollar note from the Texas Republic, you…you," she finally put it together, "You're the man who blew the safe in Houston two days ago!"

"Shut up!" Kronos clamped his hand over her mouth, "You think I want the whole world knowing that when I _just_ escaped being shot full of holes yesterday?"

"How much money do you have?" she asked.

"I haven't had time to figure that out yet, the bank I robbed yesterday didn't have hardly any money in it at all," he said.

He moved to the door but the woman got ahead of him and threw herself against the door. "What's the rush?"

"I'm getting out of here before another lynch mob starts," he said.

"Nobody knows you're here," she told him, "Nobody saw you come up here last night except for Sam the bartender, and he'll keep his mouth shut for a paying customer. You're safe here for now, and if they're _really_ still looking for you, do you want to run back out into the middle of it again?"

Kronos hated to admit it but she had a point. He had been shot, stabbed and lynched several times in the last month alone, and it was getting tired. So he would stay for a while, he moved away from the door and back to the bed and laid down, he was still so tired from last night.

The woman walked up beside him and started feeling along his duster, "Where do you keep your money?"

"In my pockets," he tiredly replied.

She stuck her hands in every pocket he had and pulled out a lot of bills from the banks he'd robbed, and when she'd found them all she started counting them.

"You're new at this sort of thing, aren't you?" she asked.

"Why do you say that?" Kronos asked, most of his words muffled in the pillows.

"Because a lot of this money you stole is 25 cent certificates from the army."

"Fate has it in for me again it seems," Kronos said, "I think I can honestly say things can't get any worse than…OUCH!"

Kronos jerked his head around and saw the woman standing behind him innocently, a long hat pin in between two of her fingers.

"Don't you know it's bad luck to say a thing like that?" she asked.

"I do now."

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Melvin Koren."

"_That's_ your name?" she asked, "What did you do as a baby that was so awful your mother named you that?"

He turned back to look at her and he finally asked, "What's _your_ name?"

"Louise," she answered.

* * *

Kronos spent the day in that hotel room talking with Louise, and from what he could gather, she had absolutely no idea what she was or what he was or what Immortals were at all. He tried to find out if she had had an accident recently or something that would account for her being Immortal now, but she thought he was pulling her leg and just laughed. Kronos didn't know why, but there was something about her that he liked, and in fact he felt himself being drawn to her.

He tried to convince himself that she wasn't any different from the thousands of women he'd encountered in his life, but he knew that wasn't true. But at the same time he didn't know what it was that made her different. One thing he thought of was that he had met few women in his life who looked like her. Coming from the desert he'd had several women who all had dark skin and dark hair, most of them were tall and thin. As time passed he'd also encountered women of royal families who were very fair skinned and had light blonde hair, and they were also very thin but there was an immense difference between the rich, spoiled women he'd known who lived in the kingdoms, and the hard labored majority who lived in every village, in every town, in every tribe.

Living as old as he had, he'd figured he'd encountered every type of woman in the world there was. There were women who had to work to get everything they ever had, and those who didn't have to do anything and they lived in luxury and looked down on the rest of the world. He'd been acquainted with the sheltered and the unsheltered, the educated and the dumb, the ladies, and the whores. He'd known them all and there was something about this woman standing before him now that made her different from all the others he had ever known.

And yet, there was something about her that seemed familiar, but he didn't know what it was. One thing he had not had the fortune of encountering in his life were too many women with red hair, especially a light red. A while back when he'd been making his way through Europe he'd encountered both Irish and Scottish women with hair so dark a red it almost looked like blood. Those women however, hadn't been worth finding, let alone keeping. He didn't know why, but it seemed he'd often looked for a woman who looked like the one he was with now. It didn't make sense to him, he came from a long past of not expanding past his own preferences, and there had been no women who looked like Louise in the desert 2,000 years ago.

Then Kronos stopped, and it came to him. Yes, this woman looked familiar, very familiar, from a long time ago, so long in fact that he had almost forgotten.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse hadn't been a band of brothers for very long when they'd made the discovery. Early one morning when he and Methos had been trying to sleep, they were rudely awakened when Caspian came up to their tents screaming about something.

"Shut up and go back to sleep," Kronos had said, still half asleep, "You're having a bad dream."

"Get up," Caspian jerked Kronos to his feet and dragged him out to the river. Methos and Silas followed behind them and when they reached the river, they found an amazing discovery. From the low buzz they could tell that the woman hadn't yet become Immortal. She was young, perhaps 16 or maybe older, she was naked, her face, neck, arms and her legs had been colored by the sun but the rest of her body was still very pale, and on the top of her head was the darkest red hair any of them had ever seen. The top half of her body lay in the sand but the rest of her was still in the shallow end of the cold water. The fact that she could sleep in it said that she had come a long way, obviously to get away from something, because wherever she was from, it had to be over on the other side of the world, and Kronos knew that you didn't leave and come this far for no reason.

Kronos grabbed the girl by her hair and jerked her up, she screamed and as she opened her eyes, she became very much aware of her surroundings; but she made no move to escape, nor did she appear to be frightened in the least. It was obvious to Kronos that she had a lot to learn. He grabbed her by the neck and shook her and demanded to know who she was.

"I don't know," she said.

"Where are you from?"

"I don't know," she repeated.

"Don't lie to me!" he said as he shook her again.

"I'm not! I don't know," she said again.

Wherever she came from, she didn't appear to be hurting too much from it. Kronos noticed, as he was certain the others did too, that she was built slightly larger than the other women they'd seen. One of the first things he'd noticed was her slightly rotund stomach that stuck out like she was carrying a baby, and he also noticed that her arms while they weren't large with muscles, weren't thin either like the other women's were, they were slightly larger. The next thing he noticed was that her legs were built about as well as his own, and her feet were about as big as his as well. Except for the round face and the bright hair and what very obviously made her a woman, it almost looked as if she were built like he was.

One thing that quickly became obvious was a woman of this sort wasn't anything Caspian was familiar with as he started poking the bulge in her stomach. Without a word and only a sinister glare, she responded in turn by poking him in his stomach, harder than he had, and then she curled her fingers into a fist and slammed it into his stomach, knocking him back and the wind out of him, but before he could hit the ground, she did one more thing and kicked him in the groin, which left him howling and moaning like the animal he was.

"I think we'll find a use for her yet," Kronos said with a sinister glare in his eyes, "Silas, get her something to eat Methos, find something to cover her with. The other slaves don't walk around naked all day and this one's not going to either."

Methos took her by the arm and they started to walk away, but she stopped to kick Caspian who was still on the ground and she told him, "Get up you damned babe."

"Come on!" Methos said as he pulled her away before Caspian had a chance at her.

The girl never said much, and from what she did say, they never found out who she was or where she was from, or how she wound up where they were. Methos asked Kronos since she was a pre-Immortal, what they were going to do with her. Kronos answered that they were going to let her get a little older, and then they would make her Immortal. They never got the chance because she disappeared into the night only a few months after they had found her, and from that day on they had never found her. None of them could ever figure out how she got away without anyone knowing, but it was Kronos who was bothered by it the most, and even if he didn't let it on, the other three could tell.

Up until now, Kronos had figured he'd forgotten all about her, but now it seemed she had come back into his life, or rather he'd come back into hers.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Louise asked, "What's wrong?"

Kronos finally remembered where he was and he walked over to her and ran his hand through her curls and said, "Your hair used to be much darker than this, what happened to it?"

She looked at him for a minute like she didn't know what he was talking about, and then she smiled at him and laughed.

"I was wondering when you'd figure it out…Kronos," she said.

* * *

As the afternoon passed by slowly with an immense heat, Louise sat up in her bed with Kronos' head resting in her lap as she stroked through his hair.

"So what happened to the others?" she asked.

"I don't know," Kronos replied, "About two thousand years ago, Methos left and I guess the others followed him. I haven't seen any of them since, I don't even know if any of them are still alive anymore. So…how long have you been Immortal?"

"Oh I'd say since…7 years after I left you."

"How?" he asked.

"How?" she repeated, "Oh, I don't know, who remembers by now?"

She got up from the bed and went back behind the changing screen. "I better get ready," she said, "It'll be getting dark soon and we have another show tonight."

Kronos got up from the bed as well. "You like working here?"

"I do alright if that's what you mean, but like I said I've only been here a few days. I get 30% of the money I make, Sam takes the rest. Thus far since I arrived I have to my name $27 and a 10 cent certificate, not much at all."

"At two dollars an hour and ten dollars a night?"

"Yes, they always stay the night, only they don't ever plan to," she explained, "I'm an unusual one you know. _You_ noticed…all the men notice, I got something that they want that they can't get from the other girls, but they don't get it from me either."

Kronos looked back to the brown jug on the dresser. "I can see why."

"Really though it's the best way to go about it, I get the money, but they don't ever get to put a hand on me," Louise explained, "And they wake up and don't remember a thing, so they can't complain to my boss."

She stepped out from behind the screen in all her tainted glory, red dress, black feather, black stockings and all. "How do I look?"

"I like it."

"You would…" she stopped and turned to the window, "Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything."

Kronos followed her to the window and they went out on the balcony and looked down and saw three men come up on horseback.

"The Texas Rangers," Kronos said.

"You think they followed you here?" Louise asked.

"Well I don't think they came to see the show," he replied.

"Okay, don't worry, I'll think of something," she said.

"_You'll_ think of something? _I'm_ worried," Kronos said.

An idea came to her and she started groping through Kronos' coat. "Do you have a gun with you?"

"Stop that," he slapped her hands away, "Yes I have a gun, why?"

"Give it to me, I've got an idea," she said.

"Oh hell," Kronos remarked as he handed her his pistol.

"Okay, you get in the closet, I'll lure the three of them up here, and then we'll get rid of them," she said.

"What?!"

"Just do it!"

Kronos did as he was told, he went over to the closet which was at the same end of the room as the balcony. Louise tucked the gun away in her dress and went downstairs. A few minutes later, Kronos heard her return and she was talking to somebody.

"Well, I'm sure the three of you will get your money's worth," she said as she opened the door.

The three Texas Rangers stepped into the room, and Kronos watched from the slight space between the door and the wall. Louise had the three men step into the middle of the room while she shut the door behind her and locked it. When she turned back around, she had the gun in her hand.

"Alright, stick them up or I'll blow your brains out, all of you," she ordered, "Nobody try anything funny, now all three of you, drop your gun belts _right now_."

They did, and it was at that moment that Kronos emerged from the closet. He picked up the whiskey jug from the dresser and cracked one of the men over the head with it. The other two turned around and lunged at him, but Louise got to one of them first. She grabbed hold of him and just kept moving towards the balcony and the two went over the edge of it and falling two stories and landing on the dirt road below.

The man's neck had broken in the fall, and so had Louise's foot. She raised the gun into the air and fired another shot which hit the third Ranger who had come over to the window to see the sight below him. He fell when the bullet hit him and he too was dead. The ruckus was drawing attention from everybody in the town and Kronos knew they had to get away and fast. He grabbed hold of the bottom of the balcony's bars to reduce the falling distance from 20 feet to about 14 and he let go and fell to the ground as well, but he fell on his back, sparing his feet the break. He got up and pulled Louise up as well and he stuck one arm around her back and the other under one thigh and carried her over to his horse. He untied the reigns and got up behind her and got them out of there before anybody could try and stop them.

"So where do we go to from here?" Louise asked when they finally stopped.

"I reckon it'd be best if we get on out of the state," Kronos said.

She nodded, "You got about $1,200 from those bank robberies. How much will it cost to build a house?"

"That," Kronos told her, "Will depend."

The two sat in silence for a minute thinking of what to do next.

"Alright," Louise said, "Suppose you blow another safe in another bank?"

"I have an idea since you're involved it won't be that simple," Kronos told her.

"I was just thinking, I've got about $100 stuffed away in a bank not too far from here. It has a lot of money in it. You could hold it up, and we'd have plenty of money then."

"And what's the catch?"

"You're going to take a hostage. I'll dress up like a grieving little widow and tell the teller at the bank that I have to withdraw my money to bury my husband, you come in, go to the vault, have the teller open it up, you make off with as much money as you can carry, you shut the teller in the vault and you drag away a stubborn widow who won't give up her money. We get out of state, you shave your beard and change your accent so you sound like a southerner, I'll wear a veil in the bank so nobody will get a good look at my face and they won't know who I am. That way if they put out wanted posters of you, they're never going to find us."

The scary part where Kronos was concerned was it sounded like it could work. Though they both agreed it would draw some questioning if she went into a store and bought a funeral dress and a black veil and then was seen being dragged away by a bank robber in the same day. So exploring the town under the cover of darkness, they found a dress shop, busted the door open, Louise found the black dress she'd need and Kronos took the money that had been left in the store overnight. Bright and early the next morning, a veiled woman in tears went to the bank to close out an account. Ten minutes later the doors were busted down with dynamite and a man with a gun ordered the safe to be opened. Emptying out three shelves worth of money, he locked the teller in the vault and then had an argument with the widow in black over the money she had. When she wouldn't give it up, the man dragged her out of the bank with a gun to her chest, ordering her onto his horse as they made their getaway.

Waiting until night to make their move, Kronos and Louise, both with a slight change in their appearances made, stuffed their $14,000 into a bag and hopped aboard a train heading to California. In their rush not to get found out, they had forgotten that while some people wouldn't remember what Melvin Koren looked like, everybody would definitely remember a redhead cancan dancer in a sparkling red dress, so for the entire train ride Louise covered the only clothes she had with Kronos' duster coat and covered her red hair with his hat.

"So what do we do when we get off?" Louise asked, "First we find a place to build a house, and once that's finished, what do we do?"

"We'll figure something out," Kronos replied, half asleep by this time, "Who knows? Depending on how boring the place is, maybe we'll get married."

* * *

1995

Caspian had come home early that afternoon and found Methos running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, picking things up and tossing them in the closet or behind the couch.

"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this," he said, "But what're you doing?"

"There's no time to talk," Methos replied, "There's a tornado heading this way and hiding in the basement won't help."

"A tornado?"

"That's right, I got a call this morning, Kronos is coming to visit and he's bringing his wife for us to meet."

"Oh Lord," Caspian remarked.

"Exactly," Methos said, "Now, he already told me a couple of things to expect while they're here, I passed the warning on to Silas, I'm hoping that this visit doesn't turn into World War III but I'm not holding my breath."

"The thing I can't figure out is how is it he's been married to her for so long and we're just _now_ going to meet her?" Caspian asked.

"I don't know," Methos responded, "I don't know anything about her except that she's like us, which is a huge relief to me. How old though, I don't know but she must be up there because she knows who we all are, I don't think we'll be having to shed too much light during this visit."

Methos heard a car pull up out front and he looked out the window. "They're here," he groaned, "God help us all."

Outside, Kronos got out of the car and went over to the other side and opened the door and out stepped Louise who at the present moment was mostly covered by a big black fur coat.

"Really," she said, "You didn't have to do that."

"Well come on," he said, "Let's get this over with."

"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming," she dryly commented as they walked up the steps.

They reached the front door and they were greeted by Methos and Caspian stood far away from all of them as a spectator to the whole thing. For Methos and Kronos who hadn't seen each other in a good number of years, it was great to be in each other's company again.

"Well I see you haven't changed any," Kronos said, "You're still pale as a sheet and thin as an ostrich."

"You haven't changed either," Methos commented.

"Don't lie to your brother, it's a sin!" Louise told him.

"Methos," Kronos turned around and grabbed Louise and pulled her in between the two brothers, "This is Louise."

Methos offered her his hand but saw she had none to offer herself. She raised her arms revealing her hands were tucked away in a matching black muff, pulling out her right hand Methos saw it was also covered in a black glove.

"Nice to meet you, your brother's told me a lot of things about you," she said.

"Wish I could say the same," Methos replied, "I'd like you to meet."

"Don't tell me, I know, I know," Louise said as she walked over to Caspian, "A thing like this I don't forget, this is Caspian, so where's Silas?"

"He'll be back soon," Methos answered, "Why don't you take your coat off and make yourself at home?"

"Gladly," she replied as she put her muff on the dining room table and undid the fur coat. As she put it up on a hook on the coat rack, Methos and Caspian both saw that underneath the coat she wore a black tank top, blue jeans, black boots and elbow length black gloves, which she made no attempt to take off. Methos couldn't help but wonder why a person would feel a need to wear 10 pounds of fur and black gloves on a day when the sun was out and the temperature was 85 degrees and Kronos had made it very obvious she didn't give one damn about looking classy, and Methos couldn't figure out, though it was already starting to eat at him, what she was hiding.

"Well then," she said, "Where are we going to be staying during this visit?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't think your brothers have made the connection yet," Louise said as Kronos unpacked their things, "I don't think they remember me."

"You'll have to give them some credit, the last time they saw you, you were half a foot shorter and you looked Celtic," Kronos replied.

"Well…I don't think I'm going to tell them," she said.

"How come?"

"There's no sense in bringing up the past."

Kronos started laughing, "Are you forgetting who you're with? Our whole life _is_ the past."

"Well," she replied, "_I_ don't want to bring it up."

"Alright then, we won't."

Kronos looked in the mirror on the dresser and saw her on the other side of the room.

"You look tired."

"It was a long trip," she answered, "Now, is everything unpacked?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go get reacquainted with the three nitwits downstairs."

Kronos followed behind her as they headed back down the stairwell and into the living room.

"Is everything alright?" Methos asked.

"Everything's fine," Kronos answered.

"Well, Louise," Methos said, "How are you enjoying your vacation so far?"

"What vacation?" she asked as she grabbed her fur coat off the rack and wrapped herself up in it, "This isn't a vacation. In my time I've learned that there is no such thing _as_ a vacation unless I don't have to do anything."

"And you won't," Kronos told her.

"Then I'm enjoying myself," Louise answered as she sat down on the couch, "And what about you, Methos? You're looking about as comfortable as a turkey the day before Thanksgiving."

Methos seemed to bite down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from saying what he was thinking. "I'm fine," was all he said in response, "How was your trip up here?"

"One long car ride with old lead foot at the wheel," Louise answered as she pointed to Kronos, "And wouldn't you know…for his foot never leaving the accelerator in the 250 miles it took us to get here careening through the roads at about 80 miles an hour, he STILL couldn't get that old junk heap he calls a car to go any faster than it did."

Caspian had been doing his best to look bored to death but one loud snort of a laugh escaped him when she said that. Methos tried to sound his usual neutral self when he replied, but his voice cracked up an octave in a strained laugh as he said, "Is that a fact?"

"Of course that's all very easy to say coming from somebody who never drives," Kronos said as he glared at her.

"You drive, yes, but _I'm_ the one who actually has a license," Louise said.

"Not like anybody would know," Kronos said, "Anytime you drive we wind up crashing into something after going through half the town at 120 miles an hour."

"At least when _I_ drive we don't go crashing into the river," Louise insisted.

"And what was wrong with that? You were complaining about the heat anyway."

Louise grunted and kicked Kronos in the thigh with the heel of her boot, which proved effective in shutting him up about the matter.

"Well this is certainly an interesting visit," Methos commented.

"Don't pay him any mind," Louise said, "He's just mad because it wasn't his idea to come up here today."

"Really?" Methos was surprised.

"Yes, I figured it was about time that the rest of his family got to meet the old bat he married," Louise told him, "While things were still going good."

"How's that?" Methos asked.

"Well over the years, your brother and I have had our rough spots and believe me you wouldn't have wanted us dropping in during one of those times," Louise laughed.

Caspian leaned towards Methos and asked, "How would you know the difference?"

Methos reached behind him and kicked Caspian less than subtly which also proved effective in shutting him up, for the moment anyway.

"Oh you'd be able to tell," Louise said, "One of the last ones was a while back and it was a real nightmare…"

* * *

Her mind went back almost 80 years as she recalled she and Kronos having to make a very unexpected trip from one state to the next before they could be caught and executed. Kronos had killed a detective who had been tailing him, and the two decided to leave California and head south, but on their way there they came across the harsh winter weather and found themselves traveling through what must have been four feet of snow that seemed to spread as long as Nevada was wide. The two nearly froze to death and ran all night and rested in the morning when at least the sun was out.

"If anybody would've told me," Louise said as she got up and knocked the snow out of her coonskin cap, "That I would be hopping through snow as far as the eye could see, to try and get down to Mississippi, because my genius husband slit the throat of some private dick, I would've said they were crazy."

"Oh shut up and go to sleep," Kronos said as he pushed her down into the snow.

"Kronos."

"What?" he asked as he sat up.

Louise pulled herself up and sat in the snow and took her cap off again, revealing a small hunting knife tucked away in the hair on the top of her head, and it was bloody, "Kronos, since we're already going through all this trouble, I guess I might as well confess something."

"Already I don't like where this is going," he said, "What is it?"

"Uh…that detective that you killed, he had a brother, and he came to the house while you were gone…and I killed him."

"I already knew that," Kronos replied as he got to his feet and stood next to her, "I got a good view of the body you stuffed into the oven…now," he pointed at her, "I can understand killing him, but _why_ for the love of God, did you stab that bastard 22 times?"

"Because he refused to die quickly and get it over with," she replied.

Kronos looked sickened by knowing what she had done.

"What's wrong?" Louise asked.

He didn't answer and instead turned away, as if this little revelation was too much for him to believe. As if the very idea of what she had done had truly sickened him.

"What is it?" she demanded to know, "You don't mean to tell me that what I did upsets _you_. It's a little late in your life to be going self righteous all of a sudden, Kronos. You've done your fair share, and _so_ did that dearest brother of yours."

Kronos' eyes widened at the mention of Methos, and in the blink of an eye he turned around and hit her so hard she fell back and landed head down, face first into the snow again.

And as quickly as he had hit her, he was down alongside her turning her over.

"Louise, I'm sorry."

The snow beneath her was red. Blood trickled down her nose and spilt out of her mouth when she opened it to speak.

"_That's_ more like the way things used to be between us," she said.

That was a flat out lie of course, Kronos had never struck her when she was one of the slaves in the camp. But she knew it would work to her advantage all the same.

"I'm sorry, Louise," he said again, "I didn't mean to hit you."

"Well," she grumbled, "I'm sorry too. I just hate it that anytime we seem to get settled down somewhere, _something_ always happens to blow our plans to hell and we have to pick up and leave again because we can kill one bastard, we can kill a whole pack, but we can't kill everybody who can hang us for the first murders."

"I know," Kronos replied, "I hate it too."

"Well," Louise said after a minute, "We better keep moving if we want to get out of here."

She started to get up but staggered two steps and fell down again. Kronos tried to help her up but she pushed him away.

"I think you've helped me _enough_ for one day," she said, "Let's just get the hell out of here before we freeze to death."

They traveled day and night for over two weeks before they finally reached a state where they weren't surrounded by snow as far as the eye could see. A better part of the time they spent making that trip they had spent at each other's throats, fighting to what seemed like no end. No sooner had one argument between the two died down than it seemed another started up all over again and they were each ready to carry on until the death. Once there they tried to be pleasant with one another again, and tried to rebuild their lives and hope that that time they would stay out of trouble long enough they could get through one lifetime without a pack of lawmen chasing them ready to lynch them. Over the years they had broken out in many more fights, it always seemed the next one was far worse than the last, sometimes it came to blows, and other times fists and shiners, and on some occasions even gunplay, but their fights, as massive and horrible as they got, never came to swords, for which each was grateful for, but it was never easy making sure that line wasn't crossed.

* * *

"Considering we've gone 12 hours without anybody dying yet," Kronos said that night as they got ready for bed, "I'd say this day has been nothing short of a miracle."

"Yeah, this has gone much better than I planned," Louise replied as she came out of the bathroom in her nightgown and still wearing the long black gloves, "Silas I don't think there'll be any problems with, and Caspian…I handled snakes in church for 12 years, I'll know my way around him…but why does Methos keeping staring at me with that look on his face?"

"What look?"

"Oh you know the one," she said, "It's the kind you get when you hear your mother-in-law's staying until Christmas and it's only March."

"I'm supposed to know what it means?" Kronos asked, "Do you know how long it's been since I _had_ a mother-in-law?"

"Well you don't think he knows, do you?" she asked, "He couldn't be figuring out who I am, could he?"

"Hmmm, might be, Methos always was the smartest one of the bunch, that was his mistake."

"Oh boy."

"I don't know what you're so worried about, so what if they recognize you?"

"It doesn't matter," she replied, "It's not that important."

She raised her arms and Kronos pulled her gloves off, being particularly cautious with the left one, and set them on the table by the bed. He got on one side of the bed and she slipped in the other side, but he grabbed her and pulled her on top of him.

"Well this is familiar," she commented.

Kronos tried to kiss her but she scooted down and rested her head on his chest.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded, "It's been a long day."

So it had been. Kronos grabbed the covers and brought them up on her and turned out the light. He tried to sleep but his mind was filled with memories of fire, explosions, rolling clouds of black smoke, blood, ear shattering screams of terror and pain, and none of it caused by his own hand.

He remembered well over 100 years ago, coming home one evening and finding his wife sprawled out in the yard, barely alive, her clothes torn, laying in a puddle of her own blood. Kronos rushed to her side and covered her with his coat, her eyes were barely open and she hadn't the strength to even speak. He carried her into the house and laid her out on the bed where she finally passed out. Carefully removing his coat, he also removed what was left of her clothes to see the extent of what was done to her. As horrible as it all was, what sickened him even further was that by now she _had_ to have already begun healing, and he couldn't even begin to imagine what she must've looked like when the damage was fresh. He cleaned the blood off of her and let her rest and waited, and watched as the marks and the bruises started disappearing.

It was morning before she woke up, and when she did and she saw her husband looking at her, she remembered what happened. She looked down and saw that she was naked, and a panicked look came over her as she sprang up in the bed.

"_I didn't let him in, Kronos, honest I didn't, you have to believe me."_

If Kronos wasn't sickened by this whole catastrophe before, he certainly was now, to think that his wife felt a need to explain that this wasn't something she went along with.

"_Who was it, Louise? Who did this to you?"_

She slowly shook her head and replied, _"He's gone now, that's all that matters."_

It wasn't good enough for Kronos, he wanted to track down the bastard who had done this to her and he wanted to make him suffer day and night, long before he ever killed the son of a bitch. He never did find the man responsible, and it never mattered how much time had passed or where they went or what happened, every so often he would look at Louise and he would remember, or he would wake up in the middle of the night remembering, finding her near lifeless body, her skin a mess of bruises and cuts, and all the blood running down her…

Kronos sprang up in bed as he woke up, his eyes were wide for a moment as he remembered where he was. Louise hadn't moved and hadn't woken up either, she still lay on top of him, sleeping peacefully. Kronos laid back down and looked up at the ceiling as he waited for sleep to come to him again, but he had an idea that it wouldn't. There were some nightmares even he of all people couldn't stand to face twice in one night, those that had actually happened being the worst of them all.

* * *

When he woke up early the next morning, Louise's side of the bed was empty and her nightgown was slung over the bedpost. Kronos got dressed and made the bed and collapsed on top of it when she came out of the bathroom with a tall glass of water in one hand, dressed for the day complete with her long black gloves on again.

"Did you sleep well last night?" he asked.

"I had an eventful night," she commented as she entered the bedroom, "I dreamt you and I were on a little farm in Kansas when a big storm brewed up, and this big lightning bolt chased your ass all the way to the city of Oz, and there in the town square, the wicked Witch looked into her crystal ball and your brother Caspian was one of the flying monkeys."

"That's eventful alright," Kronos replied.

"He and I never did get along, did we?" Louise asked as she set the glass down on the nightstand.

Kronos shook his head, "Not a day in either of your lives. I never could understand what was the matter with you two."

"Whatever it was, I'm sure he started it," she said.

"And if he remembered those days, I'm sure he'd say the same about you," Kronos told her as he picked up the glass and took a drink.

"And Methos," Louise added, "I'm still not sure he's not making a connection in that thick skull of his. I think he might be figuring out where he's seen me before."

"So what if he does?" Kronos asked, "What would it matter?"

"Maybe nothing, but I worked damn hard to leave behind what I was, and I don't want it being brought up again," she told him, "Can you understand that?"

Kronos thought about it for a minute. "I suppose so."

"You can note," she said, "You never bring up your past before the Horsemen, so you _have_ to know what I'm talking about. And I don't want your brothers bringing it up either, so I'm going to have to make sure they don't start making any connections."

* * *

Later that morning, while it was still early and the sun hadn't come up yet, Louise crept along the hall, though why she didn't exactly know since nobody would have to hear her coming to wake up, and over to Silas' room. She heard nothing, so she pushed the door open and looked in and found he wasn't there. It didn't even look like his bed had been slept in. The only living creature in the room besides her was a rat in a cage on the table with a weird lock on it. Most likely, she figured, so Caspian couldn't get to it. Kronos had told her all about that a long time ago.

On the walls were old and by this time many of them rusted souvenirs collected from times long since gone by now. Without turning on the light, Louise looked around at the items that hung on long pikes on the walls: old armor, bronze shields, spiked shackles, faded and torn flags from nations that had risen and fallen when the earth was still flat, and from more recent times, flintlock pistols, single-shot rifles, and…her eyes widened a bit at the old and partially flattened bugle that rested near the corner of one wall. She sauntered over to the wall and took the bugle down. It was a bit rusted and bent but still in rather acceptable condition, and she bet it still played too. An idea came to her and one could almost see the little red horns sprouting out of the top of her head as with the horn in hand, she left the room and crept along the corridor to where Caspian was still in bed.

Her quickening never having been far enough away that he couldn't feel it, it didn't wake him up now as Louise quietly and slowly pushed his bedroom door open and slinked into the room and over to the bed. When she stood just six inches away from him, she decided it was close enough. Raising the bugle, she took in one large breathe, put it to her lips, and blew with all her might. The noise that erupted from the old horn was enough to jerk Caspian awake and he about jumped for the ceiling. He fell back against the mattress and pillows and looked up at her through one open eye.

"Good morning," she said innocently.

"What," he started to say, "Did you do that for?"

She smiled like the cat who had already swallowed the canary and no evidence would be found. "I wanted to see if the horn worked."

In two seconds Caspian had thrown back the covers and lunged at her. Louise, having been in this position many times in a past life during her days as a lady of the night, jumped out of the way a split second before he would have grabbed her and he hit the wall, at which point Louise brained him with the horn and he fell to the floor unconscious.

"Now look what you did, you mutt," she said as she put the horn down and picked him up and hauled him back over to the bed, "You fall down and go boom!" she added as she dropped him back on the bed.

For good measure she beat him upside the head with the horn once more, and this time it was strong enough to leave blood on the bugle. He wouldn't be waking up and giving her trouble anytime soon, so she made her exit and closed the door behind her on the way out.

* * *

"Kronos," Methos hadn't paid much attention when he first awoke that morning and hadn't seen his younger brother up and around yet, but two hours had come and gone and there had still been no sign of Kronos, so Methos went to see if he was still in bed. Pushing open the bedroom door, Methos saw Kronos sprawled out on the bed in a dead sleep. This wasn't like Kronos at all, he had never been the bursting ball of energy that Richie was but he never slept this late in the day either. Methos went over to the bed and shook Kronos to try and wake him up but it didn't work, so he slapped Kronos' cheek.

Almost before his eyes were even open, Kronos returned the slap, hard enough to leave an impression in Methos' flesh.

"What did you do that for?" Kronos asked.

"What are you still doing in bed?" Methos asked as he placed his own hand over the stinging nerves in his cheek, "It's after nine in the morning."

"What?" Kronos picked up the clock on the nightstand and looked at it, he couldn't believe that he had slept for that long. "Where's Louise?"

"I haven't seen her all day," Methos replied, "I thought she was with you."

"She was up before it was even six in the morning…and when in the hell did I fall asleep again?" Kronos asked.

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up only to fall flat on his face with the first step he took. Methos knelt down beside him and helped him back up.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Who hit me?" Kronos asked, his eyes starting to roll in two different directions.

Methos helped him back onto the bed so he could get his bearings straight.

"How much did you have to drink last night?" Methos asked.

"Not enough for this," Kronos replied as he closed his eyes and raised a hand to his forehead, "What's going on?"

"How're you feeling?" Methos asked.

Kronos only moaned in response, "I think I'm going to be sick."

_Poor kid,_ Methos thought, though he didn't dare say it for Kronos to hear, his brother resented very much any comments that referred to the fact that he was the younger brother of the two.

"Kronos, why don't you lie down and I'll see where Louise is."

"No, no," Kronos grumbled as he got to his feet again, "I'm fine. I need to find out where my wife is."

At that exact moment, Caspian came into the room and took in the sight before him.

"What happened to him?" Caspian asked, "Did she get to him too?"

"Did who get to him?" Methos asked.

"His wife, that wolf in wool you call a woman came into my room earlier and beat me to death."

"Too bad the effect wasn't long-lasting," Methos murmured to Kronos.

"Caspian, you're imagining things again," Kronos said, unconvinced.

"I am not, I'm telling you she hit me!"

"Oh I don't believe you," Methos replied, "Where is she?"

"She's not here," Caspian answered, "I searched up here, downstairs, in the basement and on the grounds, she isn't anywhere."


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you mean she isn't here?" Kronos demanded to know.

"It's just like I told you," Caspian replied, "I've searched the entire house _and_ the grounds, and she's gone."

"You're lying."

"Why would I?" Caspian asked.

"Well I can think of a few reasons," Methos chimed in.

"Shut up," Caspian told him, "I keep telling you, she's not here."

Kronos said nothing and only passed him and stormed out of the room, with Methos following behind him.

"Wait for me, I'll go with you," he told Kronos.

Kronos reached the bottom of the stairwell, opened the front door, went out, and Methos heard his brother collide with somebody else and heard them both yell as they hit the ground. Methos stepped out onto the front porch and tried as hard as he ever had not to laugh.

Kronos lay on his back with his eyes all but rolled back in his head; slowly he sat up and had only to say, "Who hit me?"

It was then that he saw who he had collided with. Louise lay just three feet away from him, also knocked on her back with her feet in the air, and she wasn't making to get up anytime soon either.

"Louise," Kronos moved over beside her and helped her up, "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she replied her eyes stuck halfway near the back of her head, "But what happened?"

"Louise, where have you been?"

"Out here in the yard, why? Is something wrong?"

"Are you sure of that?"

She closed her eyes and nodded, "I couldn't get any of the windows open so I came out for some air, right after you went back to sleep."

"Are you sure you've been here the whole time?" Kronos asked.

"What kind of question is that? _Of course_ I'm sure."

"Just checking," Kronos said, "Are you feeling alright?"

She nodded, "I'm fine, Kronos, is something wrong?"

He smiled and shook his head. "No, everything's fine."

Kronos was relieved to see that his wife was okay, Methos on the other hand, was starting to wonder.

* * *

Late in the morning, Silas couldn't find Methos anywhere in the house so he went out the front door and decided to search the grounds. He got outside and saw Methos over by Kronos' car, knelt down by it, looking at something. Silas heard the low rumble of thunder in the sky and he knew that a storm was on its way, this he'd known since he saw the red dawn earlier that day, but he could almost feel it drawing closer now.

"Methos!" he called as he walked up to his brother, "What're you doing?"

Methos got up, turned to him and answered, "Kronos took Louise down the back road to the lake, while they're gone I wanted a chance to look at something."

"What is it?"

"This morning Caspian said Louise was gone, Louise said she had been here the whole time, I thought I might look and see if she were telling the truth or not."

"How would you know?" Silas asked.

"Well Kronos parked the car in the yard, no ground up here has been paved and probably won't be for 100 years. When he drove it through yesterday afternoon the tires made tracks in the dirt and the grass. So I came out to see if there was still only one set of tracks."

"And was there?" Silas wanted to know.

"No, there were three."

"Three?"

"One on top of another over another, I think Louise backed the car out of here and left early this morning after Caspian said she knocked him out, and _just_ got back when Kronos came out to look for her. Although _where_ she went, and why she would do it without telling Kronos, that's what I don't know, yet. Silas, did _you_ see Louise this morning?"

He shook his head. "I went over to the stable and tended to the horses, I didn't see anything or anybody."

"Well," Methos said, "It would seem Kronos got himself a smart one alright…maybe a little too smart."

Silas knew Methos better than the others and he could see the gears starting to turn in his brother's mind. "What're you going to do?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," Methos replied, "But I'll think of something."

A loud rumble erupted in the sky and Methos felt the ground shake from beneath him. "Come on," he said to Silas, "We better get them before the storm hits."

* * *

That afternoon the rain poured down and every few minutes there would be a loud rumble of thunder followed by a near deafening clap of it. Kronos watched it all from the window in their bedroom, all the while not really seeing the rain, rather he was trying to look past it. His mind was in nowhere particular, and yet it was trying to return to an exact memory. Never in his whole life did he ever enjoy having to pick between his wife or his family in who he believed. He recalled earlier that day, Caspian accusing Louise of attacking him, Kronos hadn't believed him at all. Caspian sounded damn sure of himself but he always had, even when he lied through his teeth.

In that instant, his memory went back thousands of years to another time when Caspian seemed certain of himself. Kronos had awoken one morning to find Louise gone; he searched his brothers' tents, he rounded up all the slaves and she was nowhere to be found. He spent half a day looking for her and he finally found her, unconscious, her body discarded near the river, her dress torn, her face bruised under one eye, and marks of curled hands around her throat. Adding insult to injury, because it had taken him so long to find her, now her flesh had been burnt bright red from the sun and the wind as well. When he picked her up he was very careful not to hurt her anymore than she already had been. He carried her back to the camp and laid her out in his tent, removed her dress and covered her up in his bed.

Methos had seen him return and came to see what had happened, and when he saw what had been done to Louise, he couldn't believe it.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know," Kronos replied, "Though I have a good idea."

Caspian was the only one in the whole camp who ever gave her any trouble that she didn't provoke; and considering that Kronos had claimed her for himself, he knew that Caspian was also the only one in the whole camp who would dare defy his brother's direct order.

Louise moved, barely, to turn over. The low moans that she was subconsciously releasing for them to hear only told them further of how much pain she was in. Kronos' hands started clenching into fists and unclenching; he was starting to see red and he was ready to kill his brother. Methos moved away from him and set to work dipping an old rag in the water basin and carefully running it over the reddened skin on Louise's face, even her eyelids had been burnt.

Kronos couldn't even remember turning around and leaving, all he did remember was finding Caspian and beating the hell out of him until after the sun went down that night. He really had had no intention of it carrying for as long as it did, and it wouldn't have, if Caspian would have just explained why he did it. But the little bastard was so full of himself that he endured being beaten half to death for six hours all the while claiming that he didn't know what Kronos was talking about and that he didn't go anywhere near the witch.

From that day to this Caspian had never admitted to what he'd done even though Kronos knew it was him. And now it seemed that Caspian was starting to pick up some of his old habits again.

"Hey."

His mind returned to the present when Louise sat down on the bed beside him and looked in his eyes and asked him, "What're you so hot and bothered thinking about?"

One corner of his mouth turned up and he replied, "Nothing."

"Be nice if I could believe that," she said, "You've been distant all morning. Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, "No, everything's fine."

Her eyes grew a bit colder, started a bit more to resemble glass. "Yeah, everything's fine, except for the fact that you never wanted your brothers to meet me."

"This again," Kronos quietly groaned.

"Let's see if I got this straight," Louise said, "You met up with Methos again, how long ago was it, 50 years ago?"

Kronos turned away and looked over to the window again as he answered, "About that, yes."

"And it wasn't until 25 years ago that you told him that you had a wife, isn't that correct?" Louise asked.

Kronos said nothing and only nodded his head, waiting for her to start again.

"Perhaps you'd like to explain why that is," Louise said as she stood up, with one foot resting on the trunk as she awaited his response.

"I told you already."

"I know you did. I also know that you never seem to tire of hearing yourself talk, and never in all the years that I've known you have you ever been shy about repeating yourself. So start talking."

Oh the joy of being married to an opinionated woman. Well, Kronos thought, he supposed he asked for this staying married to her for all these years.

"You know the last time Methos and I saw each other, it didn't end on pleasant terms. When we met up again, he thought that I was just the same as I was when he threw me down in that pit. It took a long time to convince him that I had changed, _genuinely_ changed…if he couldn't believe it, I didn't see much point in dragging you into it too."

"And after he realized it?" Louise asked.

Kronos didn't answer.

"25 years he _knew_ about me and you didn't want us meeting, _when_ were you going to bring us up here to get acquainted, 50 years, 100 years, never? Why? For what reason? Are you embarrassed? And of whom? Me? Them? There must have been _some_ reason why you never brought me up here to meet them, what is it?"

He turned away again and he didn't answer her. She got on her knees and scooted over behind him and in a gentler voice said, "What is it, Kronos?"

Without turning around to face her, he raised his hand and reaching behind him, caressed her cheek as he replied, "That's one thing I can't answer."

Louise said nothing and only let out a frustrated sigh as she wrapped her arms around Kronos and folded her hands on his chest and kissed him. Little good it did to thaw out how frigid he was feeling at that exact moment. He didn't enjoy keeping things from Louise but he knew there were some things she was better off not knowing, and he prayed she never found out.

* * *

"So _now_ you believe me?" Caspian asked Methos after Methos told him what he'd found out.

"I'm not saying that," Methos replied.

"Then you _still_ don't believe me."

"I'm not saying that either."

"Well what _are_ you saying then?" Caspian asked.

"I don't know," Methos admitted, "But I'm sorry that I automatically assumed you were lying. Kronos' wife is up to something but I just don't know what it is."

"And lot of good it'll do us trying to find out without upsetting Kronos in the process considering that he's hardly left her alone for a minute since they got here," Caspian realized.

Methos nodded in agreement.

"So what do we know so far?"

"All that we can really say we know at this time," Methos said, "Is that early this morning right after she must've conked you out, she managed to slip out of the house without anybody finding out she was gone, got in the car, backed it out the way Kronos came in, and stayed gone for over two hours, where, we don't know, nor do we know why."

"And it's only a half hour drive to get back into civilization," Caspian added, "So, you take an hour to go both ways, that still leaves over an hour to be gone, where could she have gone?"

"Well there was nothing in the car after she got back so I'm guessing she didn't stop anywhere to pick up anything, so she might've gone to see somebody," Methos thought.

The two were left scratching their heads on that one and coming up blank.

"Caspian?" Methos finally asked.

"What?"

"How old did Kronos say Louise is?"

He shook his head, "I don't know."

"Well, we've known for 25 years that she existed…but they've been married for over 100 years."

Caspian slowly nodded, not quite sure where this was going.

"In all the times he's been coming up here since we all met again, he's never stayed for too long, has he?"

Caspian shook his head in response, still not quite sure what Methos was getting at.

"A day, two days, maybe a week in a blue moon, but he never stayed for very long…and now that they've been here he's hardly let her out of his sight…why," he asked, "Would you need to keep an eye on your wife that much when she's that old? _Clearly_ she knows how to take care of herself, so why is Kronos being so cautious with her?"

"I don't know," Caspian answered, "But what's that got to do with this?"

"Maybe nothing, I'm just thinking…and I'm wondering if there's a connection to him watching her like a hawk as he's been doing this whole visit so far and I'm guessing through most of their marriage, and her slipping out conveniently when nobody could catch her, and getting back _just_ as he was heading out to look for her."

* * *

"I just don't see why I can't go with you," Louise said. She had fallen asleep that afternoon and woken up to find Kronos getting ready to leave.

"I told you already," he said, "You're not allowed to come."

"Not _allowed_?" she repeated, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Kronos just smiled at her and said, "Now you be a good girl while I'm gone and don't burn down the house."

"I promise nothing," she defiantly replied.

He saw the sourpuss look on her face and he just had to laugh.

"Come on now," he said, "Give me a kiss."

She turned away from him. He laughed and grabbed her from behind and pushed her down on the bed and kissed her.

"I hate you," she said as he headed toward the door.

He ignored her last comment and closed the door behind him and made his way to the stairwell. Looking over the banister down below he saw Methos coming into the lower hall.

"Methos," he said as he came down the stairs, "I'm heading out for a while, and I'm going alone, will you keep an eye on Louise while I'm gone?"

"Is something wrong?"

"No, she's just mad that she can't come with me."

"Why can't she?"

Kronos glanced up the stairs to see if Louise might be there listening. He didn't see her but he wasn't going to take a chance on her eavesdropping, he pulled Methos to him and said in it in his ear.

"Oh," Methos nodded, "I see. Well, I'll certainly do what I can, but I'm afraid I've been married too many times to know that when a woman sets her mind on something, she'll find a way of doing it, come hell or high water."

"I've been married to Louise long enough to know that's true, just keep an eye on her until I get back."

Methos didn't know what for, but he said he would. Once Kronos was gone, Methos heard Louise call from the top of the stairs. "Is he gone yet?"

"Yes, he's gone."

He saw Louise descend from the top of the stairs, wrapped up once again in her long black fur coat, and as she neared the bottom of the stairs she said, "Don't you ever turn on the heat in this house? Last night it was colder than a witch's tit, and I know this because for the last 100 years I've have the misfortune of sleeping with your brother's poking into my back."

Methos felt some color rising to his cheeks as he became too shocked by what she'd said to laugh. "I, I'm sorry, Louise," he finally got out, "I didn't realize it was cold last night."

"No you wouldn't, but what can one expect from a man who wears six layers of clothes at the same time?"

Methos didn't know how to respond to that one.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm just not feeling in much of a sociable mood today…I'm sure you can understand that."

Methos nodded. "We all have our bad days."

"Too bloody bad some people can't figure that out. Between you and me, if there's one thing I can't stand it's people who figure you should always be pleasant. Can't a person have a day where they're just in a rotten mood to everybody once in a while? They like to go on about we should be happy about what we have. Oh yeah, really happy…I had a boyfriend who shot me three times during a game of Russian roulette, all three times in the girdle, I was chased out of my home 17 times by detectives or other lawmen who I always wound up having to kill, I burnt to death in a car crash in the 1920s when I outran the police following a bank robbery and wound up going off a cliff…I was caught in a bomb explosion, I went diving out the window of the Hindenburg 200 feet above the ground with my coat on fire…oh yeah, I got a lot to be _happy_ about."

"I'm very sorry to hear that, Louise," Methos said.

"I'm even sorrier that it all happened," she replied, "But, life goes on and in the long run it hasn't been all bad but that doesn't mean I'm not entitled to be a complete bitch now and again if I feel like it. I'm old enough, I think I've earned it. I'm sure you can appreciate that."

Methos nodded. "I've had a few of those days myself. But things are going alright now for you, aren't they?"

"They're going _better_, I'll give you that, I wouldn't say alright though," Louise told him, "It helps though that now, I have Kronos to drag through the suffering with."

"Well," Methos commented, "He sure seems to love you."

She nodded and laughed bitterly, "Yep, that's always been what I did best…I always knew how to make Kronos love me."

Methos looked at her and saw her in a different light at that second. He would swear that he had heard her say that, or something to that effect, in that same voice, somewhere before. He looked at her and tried to figure where he might have seen her before, and he could swear he almost had it, but he just couldn't think of when or where it had happened.


	4. Chapter 4

"Where's the witch?"

"_Louise_," Methos replied, "Is upstairs in the tub. I'm warning you now, when she comes down, behave yourself."

"What for?" Caspian asked.

"Because I promised Kronos while he was gone, nothing bad would happen around here, _and_," Methos grabbed Caspian tightly by his collar to make a point, "If anything _does_ happen, I'll have no problem letting Kronos know who was responsible. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Caspian grumbled as he pulled away from him.

They heard a door open upstairs, which was quickly followed by Louise's bellowing as she came down the stairs wearing only in a black towel from the bathroom and her black gloves.

"Well that was certainly unwinding," she said as she stood across the room from the two men, "Now, where's that bottle you were telling me about?"

"In the kitchen," Methos said, "Follow me." Before he took a step forward, he reached over and shoved Caspian ahead of him, "You go first."

"So where's Silas?" Louise asked as she looked out the window as they passed into the kitchen, "I haven't seen him around lately."

"That's because he's being smart and hiding out in the back yard," Caspian said.

Methos kicked him and replied, "He prefers to keep busy."

"That much is bloody obvious," Louise said, "It seems every time you turn around he's heading in a different direction to do something else."

"Most of which being bringing a whole damn zoo into this house," Caspian noted.

"Oh come on, Caspian, it's not that bad," Methos said.

"Is it?" Louise asked, "As you can probably imagine, your brother didn't bother filling me in on the details."

"Well," Methos started to explain, "Silas isn't much of a…that is he…uh…you might say he prefers the company of animals to most people."

"Doesn't everybody?" Louise asked.

"And as long as we've been living out here," Caspian grunted, "We've had some 500 four legged bastards come through this house."

"Don't pay any attention to him," Methos told her, "He's just mad because most of them wind up in bed with him."

"Well," Louise glanced over at Caspian and said, "I can see why, he _does_ bear some resemblance to the vampire bats in the Amazon. Have you been to the Amazon?"

"Not anytime soon," Methos replied as he took a bottle of whiskey out from underneath the sink.

"Consider yourself lucky, that genius brother of yours thought we should go on a trip and see South America…well, that was a big mistake," Louise said, "The first boat we took into the river had a hole in it and sank like a stone with us in it. The next one we took got us out of Colombia and we hit a sandbar coming into Ecuador and we capsized and lost half our supplies."

"Oh that's _too_ bad," Caspian dryly commented.

Louise ignored him and turned back to Methos, "That wasn't the worst part, oh no, then things had to go from bad to worse, and the sharks came."

"Sharks?" Methos asked as he took a swig of the alcohol and passed the bottle to her.

"Oh yes, you didn't know they had them there, did you? Well, a whole pack of them was coming our way and they were biting into everything in their way…and I tell you _that_ is why I don't believe in evolution. These are creatures that exist for hundreds of millions of years and _still_ their brains are the literal size of a peanut. Had we a radio with us we could've overloaded the suckers' brains with a hard rock station. Well…six hours later we finally lose the sharks and set on our way again, and you'd think the worst would be over."

"You'd _certainly_ hope so," Methos nodded in agreement.

Louise took a large swig from the bottle and wiped her wrist across her mouth and passed the bottle to Caspian before she answered.

"No, it gets better," she replied, a large knowing hardened grin on her face as she calmly explained, "Before we can cross into Peru, a 12 pound stingray decides it's tired of the river and gets the bright idea to jump out of the water and pay a visit to my husband's lap…needless to say we capsized again afterwards."

That had been enough to draw a snort out of Caspian, along with some of the whiskey he'd drank.

"By the time we got to Brazil," Louise continued, "We were both dead tired and just fell to the ground and fell asleep. We were rudely awakened six hours later in the dead of night when a 25 foot, 100 pound anaconda decided to cuddle up between us." Louise herself was having trouble keeping a straight face by this time, "And when we got home, I told your brother if he even _suggested_ going back there ever again, I'd take his head myself. Thus far he's made plenty mention of Egypt, Europe, Mexico and Central America, but not one word about the Amazon."

* * *

The sun was starting to go down when Kronos finally returned. As soon as he stepped in the front door he called to Louise and Methos but got no response. He wandered into the living room and found a rather unusual sight laid out before him. Methos, Louise and Caspian were all passed out, Louise draped over the arms of a chair, Methos lying on his back on the floor and Caspian sprawled out on the couch like a corpse in a casket. Each to their own looked so ridiculous, Kronos didn't know where to start, but he decided to see how much his dearest brother could recall. He placed his foot on Methos' stomach and pressed down a couple of times, and it got his attention. Methos slowly opened his eyes and looked up at his brother and a tired and goofy smile formed on his face.

"So," he said, "You're back."

"What happened here?" Kronos asked, gesturing to the other two unconscious people in the room.

Methos pulled himself up and leaned on his elbows as he looked around and saw Louise and Caspian. He laid back down as he answered, "You might saw we had a bit much to drink."

"Did everything go alright?"

"Well we managed to get through the afternoon without anybody dying if that's what you mean," Methos said, "And your wife," he started to laugh, "She's _quite_ the storyteller, I must say."

The look on Kronos' face made it obvious he didn't know what Methos was talking about but he already knew it wasn't good.

"Exactly _when_ was it you two took that little trip down the Amazon River?"

The expression changed on Kronos' face into something unreadable.

"Six hour fight with sharks, a 12 pound stingray, 25 foot anaconda, you really know how to plan a vacation, don't you, brother?" Methos asked.

"She told you about that."

Methos nodded.

"As long as I've been gone, I hate to think what else she must've told you," Kronos said.

"Oh she had plenty to say…I really think we're going to get along just fine," Methos told him, "I don't know _why_ you didn't bring her up here before now for us to meet."

"I seem to be getting that from all sides today," Kronos said as he went over to Louise and shook her to wake her up.

"Huh?" Methos asked.

"Nothing."

* * *

Kronos was only half asleep that night as he lay beside Louise in bed. For the past half hour he had been turning on one side and then the other, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. Unfortunately it wasn't getting him anywhere and he had a good idea this was going to be another night of insomnia. Without turning over he knew that Louise was asleep and had been for almost an hour, he was thankful for that much. He reached over to her side of the bed and rested his hand on her shoulder; subconsciously she must've felt it because she craned her neck and nuzzled her head against it.

When he had returned home that afternoon, Louise wasn't talking to him, which oddly enough was worse than when she yelled and threw things at him. After about an hour she had come out of it though and things seemed to be back to normal. One thing he was thankful for, Louise wasn't the type of woman who tried to use guilt on a person. It wouldn't have worked anyway but he appreciated the fact she didn't waste her time trying with it. Of course, Louise had always insisted there were only two groups of people that had any holding in the way of guilt and she didn't fit into either category. Looking back now, Kronos realized the day hadn't been pure hell but it certainly did come close a few times. In fact it was getting to the point where Kronos could almost swear things couldn't get much worse than…

"YEOUCH!"

Kronos sprang up in bed when he felt two sets of teeth bite into his hand. He looked to the side and saw Louise grinning in her sleep as she chewed the flesh between her teeth, like a dog with an old ham bone. Kronos lifted her head up and pulled his hand away and tried to wake her up. He pressed down on her collarbone a few times but it didn't wake her up. Then he started shaking her to try and get her attention, but all he got from that was two feet kicking him in the gut and knocking him out of bed and onto the floor.

As he climbed back into bed, the only thing he could think of was that must have been some dream Louise was having, and hell if he was going to wake her up because then neither of them would be getting any sleep. The two of them had already spent far too many sleepless nights together with nothing to show for it except two blown tempers time and again. Sometimes Kronos wondered how exactly fate had decided to stick him with a woman who was just as stubborn as he was. Oh he was sure it was punishment for something he'd done in a past life, but exactly what it was he didn't know and he was too tired to think about it now.

Another half hour passed and he still wasn't able to sleep. So he got up and slipped out of the room without waking his wife, and made his way down the hall to Methos' room to see if he was still up. He pushed the door open and was met with complete darkness and that was all that he was met with. Methos wasn't in his room and his bed hadn't been slept in. Kronos left the room and tried to think where his brother might be at this time of night, especially being as far away from civilization as they were. Then he got an idea and he went down to Caspian's room and went in. The room was dark but the dim light from the moon and the stars shone in through the window, revealing two figures, Methos and Caspian, asleep in the bed, side by side.

Kronos had to laugh. Ordinarily paranoia was Methos' strongpoint but it seemed to be rubbing off on Caspian now. He still swore up and down that Louise had come into his room and knocked him out, which was one of the craziest things Kronos had ever heard in his life. He walked over to the bed and in the dim light saw his brothers. The two had their backs turned to each other and Kronos could guess they had gone to sleep under less than pleasant circumstances. Thinking back, it was often very rare that Methos and Caspian ever slept together. Caspian was a loner by nature for most of his existence and that had been a hard habit to break when the four of them joined together. He rode in a pack but he'd raise all hell if anybody tried to get in bed with him at night. Methos had been a loner for most of his early life as well, but not so much by nature as by circumstance. Methos longed for human contact but always got pushed away, or chased out by people who wanted him dead, or he left in the middle of the night to escape whoever had been his owner at the time.

Looking back on it all now, it did seem a bit unusual that given the lives they had led until the four of them met, they were able to become what they were. However if there was one thing that Kronos in all his time had known, it was that the greatest men and the greatest soldiers were made, never born. If destiny had any role in determining what people became, it certainly never bothered to make itself known in that fact. Nobody he had ever known had been born destined for anything great that they became, that was only a result of trial and error and rebellion. Most people he had known who made something of themselves and became a holy terror to anybody they crossed paths with, were not brought up to be that way but rather it was their own choosing that made them what they were.

That was one thing he admired in his brothers, they all had come from nothing but four painful, shattered lives of bondage and pain, to become the most feared band of men the world had ever known. And then it came to him that that, he supposed, was also what he admired in his wife. When they first knew her, she was an unknown woman from an unknown life who became a slave. And after she left…he never really found out what happened immediately _after _she left them, but for more than a hundred years he had gotten a good idea of what she had become.

When the world was different and the rules were different, when most women were raised only to be married off, work 14 hours a day on some God forsaken land and bear damn near a dozen kids each and then die, Louise, or whatever identity she had gone by in those times, made her way through the world alone and on top by her own ruling. Of course there was a very simple reason for that, she was a smart woman, _too_ smart once he thought about it. When he thought of all the times that they were both nearly killed because of an idea she had come up with…and he had to laugh because in retrospect it almost seemed that he had married a mirror image of himself. There was a whole world of difference between when he got them in trouble and when she did. When one of his plans went awry, they were faced with a lynch mob. But whenever one of Louise's plans went south, they nearly got blown up.

As he thought about it though, he wondered exactly how different things would have been had she stayed with them instead of taking off in the middle of the night. While it was a question that had plagued him for thousands of years, he never brought himself to ask Louise just _why_ she left. He decided that whatever her reason was, he didn't want to know. It was then that he decided it was probably not the brightest idea he had to leave her alone, so he pulled the covers up on Methos and patted his head as if he were a dog, and quietly slipped out of their room and back to his own.

He picked up a glass of water from the nightstand and took a drink. Back in the pitch dark of their room he had much more trouble seeing things but he was still able to make out that Louise was still asleep and hadn't moved an inch. As Kronos crawled back into bed he thought about how he didn't know what Louise did to sleep every night undisturbed but he was thankful she did. He was thankful one of them did anyway, but he personally couldn't remember the last time he slept through a whole night. Something always either kept him awake or woke him up in the middle of the night, and more times than not he didn't know what the cause of it all was. Oh he could guess, live 4,000 years without a conscience and it's bound to find its way back to you eventually. But, he noted, whatever was bothering him certainly _didn't_ feel like a conscience eating away at him. For as long as it had been keeping him awake at night, he had never found out what it was, and he certainly didn't think he was going to get any further tonight. So he just lay beside his wife and stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity until sleep finally took him.

* * *

As the clock struck two in the morning, Methos and Caspian more or less quietly made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Quit stepping on my foot," Methos said.

"If I could see where I'm going, I would," Caspian replied.

"Shut up."

Methos stopped in the doorway and Caspian walked into him.

"And _you_ quit doing that!" Caspian demanded.

"Oh be quiet," Methos told him, "You want to wake everybody up?"

"Why not? We already are," he responded.

"Shut up."

Methos made his way over to the sink and pulled a bottle out from the cupboard underneath it and set it on the table.

"Remind me again," Caspian said, "Why since _you_ can't sleep, I had to get out of bed."

"Remember you said you weren't going to be alone tonight incase Louise came back into your room? That's all I need, I come down here for five minutes, I come back up and you're screaming your head off that I left you alone and Louise brained you again."

The light came on in the kitchen and Louise stood in the doorway, dressed in her nightgown and her gloves. "You think you've got it hard? Try resting peacefully knowing you're sharing a house with Sawney Beane's brother-in-law," she said as she gestured to Caspian.

"I thought you were asleep," Methos said.

"I was, but my bat radar picked up on a gin bottle about to be uncorked, so get some glasses and put it on the rocks," she told him.

"Where's Kronos?" Caspian asked.

"In bed asleep," she answered, "Right now you couldn't wake him up if you lit a roll of firecrackers and stuffed them down his boxers. So I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for the three of us to get further acquainted with one another."

"Speak for yourself," Caspian responded.

Methos kicked him in reply as he poured three glasses for them.

"So what did you want to know?" Methos asked.

"Well I told you plenty about my marriage to your brother, I'd imagine a man who's lived 5,000 years and was married 68 times would have a few stories of his own to tell," Louise said, "Unlike my husband, I get tired of hearing myself talk. So now, let's hear a little about _your_ life."

"This could take a while," Methos told her.

"So what? We've got four hours before the sun comes up," she replied.

"Well then," Methos said as he handed her a glass, "I suggest we move to the living room where it's not quite so cramped."

"And bring the bottle," she told him, "I have an idea if we're going to be listening to your life story for long, we're all going to need a few drinks to get through it."

* * *

Methos spent the next three hours telling Louise about the last 50 years of his life and the last three women that he was married to. For most of it, Louise responded by laughing like a hyena, and Methos guessed it had more to do with the booze they were drinking since he didn't think anything he'd said had been that funny. As the clock struck the hour, Methos realized how late it had gotten and he looked over to the couch and saw Caspian passed out in a very crooked position. Methos realized that for most of the evening it had just been he and Louise engaged in the conversation, and he suddenly couldn't remember when it was that Caspian had finally shut up and gone to sleep, but now Methos couldn't wake him up for anything.

"Let the drowned rat sleep," Louise said, "It's much more pleasant when he's not talking."

Methos couldn't argue with that.

"You know, Methos," Louise said, "This really hasn't been too bad of a visit, do you think?"

"No," he shook his head.

"Though the other day when we first got here you sure looked like you were expecting the trip to be a real nightmare," she commented.

Methos laughed and replied, "Well you know, knowing my brother as well as I do, whenever he tells me he's met somebody, I always have to wonder."

"He doesn't find a lot of keepers, does he?" Louise asked.

"No," Methos laughed, "Not usually."

"I figured as much, to be honest I'm surprised we've lasted as long as we have," she said.

"Exactly _how_ long has it been for the two of you?" Methos asked.

"Oh well, let's see…this is the sixth of June so…about 128 years I'd say," she told him, "Did he ever tell you how we met?"

"No."

"No, I thought not…well, I was working in a saloon at the time in Texas…I used to be a dancer, you know…not too bad a one either. Anyway, he came in one night and…do you know what he was doing at the time?"

"I don't think he said anything about that period of time," Methos said.

"Same old stuff for your brother, robbery, murder, all the good stuff…he had just come from a bank robbery and one very angry and persistent lynch mob. He came in for a drink and we met, and considering I was making half my living entertaining men for the night, you could say we had something of an instant attraction."

"He wanted sex, you wanted the money," Methos guessed.

"Yes…maybe…he was so tired he couldn't do anything that night, I think he was just looking for a place to spend the night more than anything, I was just a bonus."

"Figures."

"Not quite…you see my way of business wasn't what you'd expect. A man would ask for me, he'd come up to my room, I'd have him chase me around the room, he'd pin me, I'd hit him over the head and he'd be out cold for the night. Come morning, he owed me ten bucks with absolutely no recollection of what happened the night before, so he didn't know he didn't get anything."

"And with Kronos it was the same thing," Methos said.

"Except he remembered the next morning, but he paid me anyway…that was how we met, and that night we blew town and headed out to California to get married."

"My brother the romantic," Methos dryly replied.

"Well the marriage _was_ his idea, I think he was joking at the time though…but considering everything we haven't done too badly for ourselves in all the time we've been married, I don't think," Louise told him, "I've enjoyed it anyway."

"I'm sure he feels the same way about it," Methos said.

"I wonder sometimes," Louise said, "You know, Methos, I like you. From the minute I met you I just knew that the two of us were going to get along just fine. I think I can trust you."

That wasn't something Methos had been expecting to hear, and now he was suspicious. "With what?" he asked.

"Well you probably gathered when we first got here that we haven't quite told you guys everything," Louise said, "Your brother and I have been carrying around a secret for a long time and…well I'm plain sick of it. But, I needed to know that I could trust you before I told you anything…and I guess this as good a time as any to start explaining."

With no further words, Louise reached her left arm over to her right elbow and started peeling down the long black glove. Methos watched in morbid curiosity to see what this whole thing was about. She pulled the glove completely off, revealing her right arm that looked normal. Then Louise reached with her right hand to her left elbow and started to pull down the other glove. She took a slower approach in pulling this one off than she had the other, and it was in great shock and horror that Methos saw why. When she pulled off the left glove and held her arm out for him to see, the flesh on her arm from right below the elbow all the way down to her fingertips was entirely charcoal black.


	5. Chapter 5

"Not a very pretty sight, am I, Methos?" Louise asked.

Methos was rendered speechless by the sight before him, and he didn't know how to answer her.

With her blackened hand Louise reached out to him and placed her hand on his cheek, and he immediately drew back before he had even realized what he'd done.

"I'd expected as much," she told him, "Both your brother and I have gone to much trouble over the years ensuring nobody ever found out about my…little problem. Immortals have hard enough lives as it is when people find out their abnormalities…I really _didn't_ need this to interfere with things as well."

From the tips of her fingers to just below her elbow, the skin on her arm was as black as if she'd just crawled out from a pack of charcoal briquettes. In all actuality there was nothing about the sight that was so horrifying, but he knew that this was something Louise had carried around for a long time and was something she would carry around for the rest of her life.

"How…" Methos started to get out, recovering from the brief shock, "Did that happen?"

Louise drew in a breath and let out a huff and answered, "That's a long story."

* * *

The year was 1868 and Kronos and Louise were two of over forty people on a steamboat heading to New Orleans. Before boarding the ship, each had spent almost two solid hours laughing at how the other was dressed. Kronos, Louise had said half a dozen times, looked like a cheap lawyer in his suit, and Louise, Kronos had remarked, looked two steps away from becoming a nun in her ankle length dress with the high stiff collar and the stiff petticoat and corset underneath and the straw hat with a tall purple feather she wore to go with it.

"Remind me again how I ever let you talk me into this," Louise said as they walked past the other passengers on the main deck.

"You were the one who wanted to go to Louisiana," Kronos reminded her.

"Yes but I never said one word about going on a steamboat," Louise replied. She stopped walking after him and hit him with her purse, "Just _why_ did we have to make the trip on a steamboat?"

"Because," Kronos replied, "It's faster than trying to travel 200 miles in a rowboat."

He started on ahead of her again, Louise pulled up her skirt and swung her foot forth and kicked him in the seat. He stopped and turned around and warned her about what would happen if she did that one more time.

"Next time," she told him, "I say we take a hot air balloon."

Kronos started to laugh, "You don't want to go in a boat but you want to become part of a big kite? Now that's funny."

"So's your face," Louise picked up her long skirt again and kicked him even harder, "Start moving."

Before he could object, she pressed her hands into his back and started pushing him past everybody until they were close to falling off the boat and into the water.

"Quit pushing me!" Kronos told her, "I can walk on my own."

Two more steps, one over the railing, and he would've gone off the edge of the ship and into the river.

"So keep walking straight ahead until you hear the big splash," Louise said.

"Knock it off," Kronos warned her, "Why are you in such a bad mood anyway?"

"Hmm, let's see, my genius husband manages to blow our cover so we have to get out of state to avoid another lynch mob. Then, he moves us into the only house in the whole damn town that the cyclone decides to chew up and spit out. Then, just when we get relocated to a nice place, he decides to jerk me out of bed in the middle of the night to make a 20 mile trip down to the docks to get aboard this God forsaken toy boat. I hope the sharks eat it and we can go home, I don't care if we don't see Mardi Gras, I don't care if we never see Louisiana, I don't care if I never go anywhere with you again. I just want to go home and go back to my own bed and forget that this past month ever happened."

Louise turned around and started walking away.

"Where do you think you're going?" Kronos asked.

"I'm going to go see what the captain's up to on this floating asylum," she sneered in response as she continued walking.

Kronos didn't always know when to take a hint but he knew when to leave worse off enough alone. He knew Louise would calm down after a while and behave herself. For the moment he'd leave her alone and let her wander around the boat and cool off. She did have a point though; the events of the past month were enough to put anybody in a bad mood. He had hoped that by getting them out of the area and going someplace of interest to them, that things would start to look up for them. But it seemed every time one wrong thing ended, something else happened before things got better.

But this time, Kronos knew nothing could happen. They were on the water, they were a good two miles from shore already, and if the lawmen back home wanted to make comparisons on past robberies and murders and made a connection, they had absolutely no way of finding out where he and Louise had disappeared off to. Yes, for the first time in a long time it looked as though nothing could possibly go wrong.

He leaned against the deck's railing and watched the scenery pass by. As much running as they had had to do over the last few years just to survive, it was refreshing to leave now just to relax. Gradually the sky turned colors and the sun started to set and before Kronos realized it, six hours had gone by, and he decided he'd given his wife enough time to calm down. As crowded as the boat was, he neither saw nor felt her anywhere nearby, and he walked into well over a dozen people trying to find her. Finally, he just stopped and asked the person in front of him, "Have you seen my wife?"

"How's that?" a man asked.

"My wife, have you seen her? She's wearing a long purple dress and a feathered hat."

The man looked around and told him, "Yes, I saw her a little while ago."

"Where was she?"

"She was…on the boiler deck."

"The boiler deck?" Kronos repeated.

"Yes."

He couldn't figure out for the life of him why his wife would want to go to the boiler…unless she found somebody up there who had a bottle with them. So he headed to the boiler and was about to laugh at the whole trip they'd had so far when something happened.

Kronos heard the rumble and explosion before he saw anything, and he was knocked off his feet. He heard people screaming, and no sooner had he turned off from his side, he was hit in the back by something hot. He tore off his jacket and started moving, not exactly sure what had happened but knew he couldn't just stand there waiting to find out. He soon got his answer in discovering that the boiler had exploded, and there was hot coal and metal flying everywhere, hitting a lot of people who were all panicking and trying to jump off the boat.

From somewhere deep in the boiler room he heard Louise scream louder than she ever had in all the years Kronos had known her. He ran directly for the boiler room and kept his head down to avoid much contact with anything that went flying. He stepped into the room that was simultaneously blackened by the smoke and lit up by the flames and he was sickened as he was forced to make his way over all the dead bodies of the crew, and their severed limbs that had been blown off from their bodies during the initial explosion. As he carefully made his way further into the room and passed two disembodied heads, he forced himself not to consider the idea of the same thing happening to his wife. He knew she was still alive, not from her Quickening as he could hardly feel it at all anymore, but because he could still hear her screaming…and those high shrieks of pain and fear would be something else to haunt him the rest of his life.

He called out to her and found her half buried under a pile of rubble that had been part of the boiler. Enduring severe burns and having his own skin come off as he grabbed at the scalding hot pieces of metal, he drove it all from his mind and relentlessly threw everything aside and swooped his burnt wife up in his arms and got them both out of the boiler room before another explosion had a chance to occur. They had to get off the boat before it sank, which he knew wouldn't be long.

* * *

Everything was quiet. Louise was somewhere between being asleep and awake. Everything was calm again. All was quiet, except her husband who was somewhere nearby, somewhat quietly praying. That got Louise's attention because in all the years she had known him, praying was one thing he never did. She opened her eyes and saw him sitting on a chair next to the bed, and when he saw she was awake, he stood up and his eyes got wide. Louise slowly looked around the room and saw that they were back in their home. Somehow Kronos had managed to get them 70 miles back the way they had come, and apparently without anybody getting in their way.

"Louise, how are you feeling?" he asked.

She stretched herself out and realized she was in bed and she didn't have any clothes on and was only covered by the blankets.

"I'm fine," she said, "What happened?"

"The boiler exploded…everybody in the room when it happened died. Several others did too, the boat sank after 10 minutes and most of them drowned," Kronos explained.

"How did we get back?" she asked.

"It wasn't easy," he told her, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she insisted, "Kronos, I want to thank you for coming in there and pulling me out. I saw…I saw…" she was starting to lose her calm composure, "The men who were shoveling coal into it when it exploded…it tore their heads right off their bodies…I hadn't seen anything so horrible in a long time."

Kronos sat down on the bed beside her and with a shaking hand, stroked through her hair and he said to her, "Try to calm down."

Louise tried to sit up and that's when she realized that something was wrong with her left arm, it felt heavy, as if the blood circulation had been cut off.

"What's going on here?" she asked as with her right arm she started to draw the covers back, "What's, what…" her eyes widened as she saw the lower half of her left arm completely blackened, and her hand balled into a permanent fist, "Oh my God!"

After the next two hours of continual screaming and crying at what had happened to her, Louise was told that she had been like that ever since they got off the boat. Kronos had torn off the sleeve of her dress to find out what was the matter with her arm and had been horrified at what he had found.

"Oh God," she cried as she tried lifting her arm, but only from the elbow up, "It's like dead weight…that's all it is," she told him, "I can't move it at all! What good am I going to be now?"

* * *

"You remember a few thousand years ago when rulers used to cut off people's toes and they couldn't walk anymore as a result of it?" Louise asked Methos, "Because that's the way their bodies were made to balance the weight so they could stand tall and walk?"

Methos nodded, "I remember."

"I never had anything like that happen to me, but I'd gone through my whole life getting equal work out of both my hands and the day I couldn't use one of them anymore, then I truly knew what it was like to have your whole body thrown off balance. I couldn't do anything anymore after that, I couldn't work, I couldn't even dress myself. Your brother had to do it all for me, if you can believe that."

That surprised Methos. He knew from much experience in the Bronze Age that Kronos could be unusually patient at the damnedest times but he never knew his brother could last through something like that.

"For how long?" Methos asked.

"It was 12 years before I could even move a muscle in my arm at all…never mind how long it took to get back to doing routine things…I'd never seen anything like it before in my life. Kronos had to tend to the horses, keep the house, cook the meals and he had to dress me and bathe me every damn day because I couldn't do anything. It took several years, but I've gotten past that…this however," she held out her arm, "I'm afraid is going to be with me until I die. In all the years I've been like this, we tried everything to get the color out…one time your genius brother even tried scrubbing it with kerosene," she laughed, "But all to no avail. I've had this as a reminder of what happened that night for over 100 years, and it is not any lighter than it was when it first happened. You know…things like this just don't happen to an Immortal, none that I ever knew anyway…and your brother, the logical one," she scoffed, "He always assumed it had to do with the contact with the burning metal and coal for all the time it took for him to pull me out…but I don't know that I ever really believed it. For a long time I thought about the possibility that maybe I had to wear it everyday as punishment for something that I did in a previous lifetime…and you know, for it to still be like this even now, I don't know if I wasn't right with that idea."

"Surely you don't _really_ think that," Methos started to say.

"I don't know what to think anymore…all I know is that I've done a lot of awful stuff in my life. Nothing that can compare to what your brother's done mind you, but it's not always the rabid dog that gets shot."

"Louise…"

She looked up and to the window. Methos turned to see what she was looking at. The sun was starting to rise.

"I better get back upstairs," she said, "Kronos is going to be waking up soon and he'll wonder where I've gone."

She stood up, collected her gloves and headed for the stairs, leaving Methos standing in the middle of the room wide eyed and not quite sure what had just happened.

* * *

Methos didn't go back up to his room after that, nor did he try and go to sleep. He sat in the living room and watched the sun come up for the morning, feeling still somewhat in shock over what Louise had told him. One on hand he felt as if he should tell Kronos that he knew, so they didn't have to go through the charade of hiding Louise's deformity, but he also knew that what Louise had told him that night was in the strictest of confidence because she had needed to know she could trust him before she said anything. So what was he going to do now?

When the sun cast a blinding glare into the whole room and Methos felt ready to collapse from mental fatigue, he heard somebody coming down the stairs.

"Well now," Kronos said as he looked at his brother, "If you don't look like something the cat spit up this morning. What's the matter with you?"

Methos yawned and replied, "Just tired…" he closed his eyes for a minute and blinked a couple times like a bright light had just come on, "I didn't sleep too well last night."

"You look more than just tired," Kronos told him as he leered in and was practically cheek to cheek with Methos, "Are you feeling alright?"

"I've just got a lot on my mind," Methos answered.

Kronos chuckled and said, "You always had that problem."

"Where's Louise?" Methos asked.

"In bed…she must be having some dream, she was asleep before I was last night and she's still asleep now."

Methos nodded in agreement, not saying anything and not quite sure what to think of everything.

Kronos looked over and saw Caspian still passed out on the couch and asked, "What happened to him?"

Methos looked over to Caspian and back to Kronos and said, "You could say he had too much to drink."

"He looks like it, and _you_," he added, "Look like the living dead. Go upstairs and fix yourself up."

Methos pulled himself to his feet and left the living room. He started up the stairs to the second floor and when he reached the top, he didn't go over to his own room right away but instead headed over to Kronos and Louise's room. He opened the door and saw she was still in bed asleep; her gloves discarded on the nightstand and she had the covers drawn up to cover her almost completely. Methos said nothing and left the room, closing the door behind him.

And what was he going to do now? He couldn't let anyone know that he knew what she had told him; he especially couldn't let Kronos know that he knew. And then, why not? he wondered. What harm could possibly come from him knowing? But then again he had to remember this _was_ Kronos they were dealing with and he was not the most logical person in the world. It seemed, he supposed, that he wouldn't be finding out anymore about what was going on, until Kronos was asleep that night.

* * *

Louise turned on her side and slowly opened her eyes. She saw the figure of a man move out of the doorway and disappear. Her eyes opened wider. The man was gone. She didn't get a good look at who it was but she was guessing it had to have been Silas because it was a large man. Her first instinct was to get up and find out what was going on, but she was too tired to do that. Instead she lay back down and closed her eyes. What seemed like a minute later, she heard somebody talking to her. She opened her eyes again and saw Kronos standing over her.

"How're you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm alright," she replied, "Who's with you?"

He looked around the room and turned back to her, "Nobody, it's just me."

"But I thought…" she turned to the window and noticed that the sun had moved from the position it was in when she woke up the last time.

"That must've been some dream you were having to sleep as late as you did," Kronos said.

"Oh yes, _some_ dream," she repeated, "Felt like I'd slept for over a hundred years. Kronos."

"What?"

"I think one of your brothers may be onto me," she said as she got up, "I think they're close to figuring out who I am."

"Methos?"

"No, Silas…he was here earlier watching me, and when I woke up, he disappeared."

Kronos tried to think why his brother would do that, and he couldn't find an answer.

"Even if he was, would it be so horrible if they found out?" Kronos asked.

"Hmm, I don't know, would it be so horrible if they found out about this?" Louise pulled her left arm up from under the sheets.

"Louise, we've been over this before," he replied.

"We have gone through a lot of trouble for over a hundred years to make sure nobody else ever found out about this," she said as she threw the covers back, "And I'm getting damn tired of it. This is your own family, if they can't know about it…well why can't they? Do you know something that I don't?"

"Of course not."

"Then why can't we tell them?" Louise asked, "We've gone so long not able to tell anybody, and it's getting old. At least they'd understand."

"Maybe," Kronos replied.

"What do you mean maybe?"

"They understand things that are within reason, they understand this," Kronos pointed to his scar, "Because I got it before my first death, that," he pointed to her arm, "How would you ever begin to explain that occurring some 4,000 years _after_ becoming Immortal?"

"I _can't_ explain it," Louise answered as she stood up and looked him dead in the eyes, "Neither can you, that's been the whole point of it…but just because we can't explain it doesn't mean I have to take it to my grave like a buried scandal. Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

She was quiet for a minute and then she answered, "Somebody's lifting the latch on Pandora's box."

Neither said anything for a minute. Kronos wasn't sure what to do and Louise was getting tired of this argument they had almost every day.

She went over to the closet and said, "I'll get dressed and be down soon, you go on ahead."

Kronos said nothing and just nodded as he turned and headed for the door.

Louise waited until he was downstairs, then she changed out of her nightgown and into a black shirt and jeans. She looked around the room for a minute as she considered her options on what to do next.

* * *

The afternoon passed with little occurring; everybody mostly kept to themselves, of course it was all for different reasons. Methos did it to make sure that Kronos would never catch on to what happened last night. He wasn't sure yet what was going on but he could already tell that they didn't need Kronos finding out that anymore people knew about what had happened to Louise than already did. Fortunately the night before, Caspian had been too drunk and in too dead a sleep to be aware of anything, so Methos was the only person who had to maintain his cover.

The day seemed to drag on for everybody in particular but Methos thought he would go crazy until night came and Louise told him the rest. What she had already explained was certainly nothing he had ever seen or heard of before in as long as he had lived. He had known several people who had been caught in steamboat explosions, some made it and some didn't, but no matter how horrible anybody ever turned out, there was nothing that seemed to match what had happened to Louise.

His mind kept going back to what she had said about not being able to move her arm or do anything for herself for 12 years, and he couldn't believe it. He knew that his brother was one of the most unusual people who ever lived, and every time he turned around, Kronos was somebody different; usually though he was a man of little patience who caused a lot of trouble if he didn't get his way. Of course there was another side to him; one that Methos for the longest time saw only in the rarest of occasions where he could be _very_ patient and sympathetic.

All the same, he couldn't very well see if something similar to what happened to Louise had happened to him, his brother being anywhere near as helpful. But he had to remind himself, there had been an absence between the two of them for a good deal of time and he didn't know what Kronos went through at that time. All he knew was that when they finally crossed paths again, Kronos was or appeared to be at least, a changed man. Changed being the operative word; he really never did find out what happened to Kronos for all the years that they never saw each other, but it seemed Kronos was no longer the man he used to be. Though Methos worried, that Kronos was not as changed as he thought and that it wouldn't take much to revert him back to the way he once was.

From a distance he spent a better part of the day watching the two. They didn't show it very well outwardly but Methos could tell how much each meant to the other. If something were to happen to either one, the surviving one would be torn apart with grief. In his own time, Methos had done a lot of things, and he had also learned a lot, but despite it all he never considered himself to be a smart man, or a brave one. Those were two things he definitely was not and he knew this. That was one area where he wasn't sure whether he envied Kronos or not. Methos never had the courage to marry another Immortal; it was painful enough losing those who only lived a few years, and even if the day didn't come one would try for the other's head, there were the rest of the Immortals in the world to worry about coming their way.

The fact that Kronos and his wife had lasted well over 100 years despite apparently going through a lot of pain on both their parts, Methos wondered if maybe it was time he reconsidered where he stood on that decision.

* * *

The day finally turned to night and it seemed that Louise and Kronos wouldn't be going their separate ways for a while. They went on to bed shortly before midnight, and Caspian and Methos did the same, once again each with their backs to each other.

Caspian woke up in the night and found that the other side of the bed was empty. On the other side of the bedroom wall was the bathroom and he could hear the shower running. Damn but his brother sure picked the strangest times to take a bath. He got out of bed and left the room and opened the bathroom door. The room was filled with steam and he could hardly see anything. He made his way over to the shower, asked Methos what the hell he was doing, and pulled back the curtain. Only it wasn't Methos he came face to face with.

Louise turned around when the curtain was jerked away and she slipped and fell, bashing her left arm against the marble tub, and she screamed. Kronos came barging into the room and he started screaming at Caspian to get out. He did, and as the door slammed behind him, he ran into Methos.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded to know.

"Downstairs getting a drink, what did you do now?" Methos asked.

The door opened and Kronos came out carrying a semiconscious Louise wrapped up in a robe and took her back into their room and slammed the door behind him.

"Trust me," Caspian said, "You don't want to know."

In the bedroom, Kronos laid Louise down on the bed and carefully removed the robe. Her body was twisted in a painful manner all to avoid any pressure being put on her arm.

"What happened?" Kronos asked.

She only moaned in response. He put his hand on her arm and she immediately screamed at the top of her lungs and started kicking him; he quickly pulled away from her. Louise lay spread out on the bed as she was for a while before she was able to move herself voluntarily. With her right hand she pulled herself up and turned herself over and climbed to the top of the bed and leaned the top half of her body over the brass headboard and breathed heavily for a few minutes.

"Are you alright?" Kronos asked.

She said nothing in response and only continued her labored breathing, as if she had just come out of an air-tight room. When Kronos wasn't expecting it, she pulled herself up and turned around and started yelling at him.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?" she demanded to know, "Nobody in this house has enough damn sense to knock on a bloody door anymore?! That brother of yours," she hissed, "If he ever comes near me again, one more time, I'm going to rip his head off with my bare hands and spit down his neck!"

"You and every other woman he's ever known," Kronos couldn't stop himself from responding.

Louise howled as she pulled herself up off of the bed and went over to the dresser and started putting on her clothes for the night. Kronos tried to help her with that but she slapped his hands away.

"I don't need any help," she insisted, "I'm not a bloody child."

"Of course not, Louise."

"Go back to bed, Kronos."

He did, and after a minute he realized he was still the only one in bed. "What about you?" he asked.

"I'm going downstairs for a drink, I'll be up soon," she told him as she started for the door.

Kronos pushed back the covers and got out of bed, "I'll come too."

"WILL YOU GET OFF MY BACK!?" Louise exploded as she turned back around to face him. Her outburst was so sudden and so loud that Kronos actually jumped back. "WE'RE NOT NUNS," she told him, "WE DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERY DAMN THING TOGETHER! NOW GO BACK TO BED!"

He did, and when the door slammed and she had gone, he was left feeling like he'd just survived a bomb going off.

* * *

Methos hadn't really gone to sleep that night; he just lay in bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark and waited. He didn't know what he was waiting for; nothing he supposed, but he had the idea that Louise was going to be up to telling more of her story that night. He'd waited and waited and nothing happened; the entire house was quiet as the dead. At some point in the night he realized, he must have fallen asleep because while he didn't feel another quickening, he felt the presence of somebody else in the room. He opened his eyes and shot up in bed and he didn't see anybody, but he could have sworn that… He looked over to the other side of the bed and saw that Caspian was still asleep. But then again, the way he slept lately you couldn't wake him up if you set off an air raid siren right next to his ear.

He wasn't sure if anything had actually happened, but he had an idea and he was going to act on it. Pushing back the covers, he quietly slipped out of bed and made his way in the dark over to the door and stepped out of the room. Careful not to trip or fall over the banister, he cautiously made his way to the stairwell and started down. He could see that the first floor was dark as well; all but one room. There was a dim light on in the living room. Methos reached the bottom of the stairs and with his heart rising into his mouth, stepped through the dining room and into the living room and found Louise in her nightgown seated on one of the chairs.

"Well," she said, "You're back."

"I had an idea you wanted to see me," Methos explained as he sat down across from her.

"Bright boy," she said, "So, where do I begin tonight?"


	6. Chapter 6

"I told you last night how after the accident, I wasn't able to do anything for myself for 12 years, didn't I?" Louise asked.

"Yes," Methos answered.

"That's 12 years I'll never forget, and I'm sure Kronos won't either. It doesn't seem logical that one such setback could disable me so…but everything I ever did I went through with an evenly balanced, fully working body. Every part of me I had a use for and it all went to what I could do…the day I woke up after the explosion, I just wasn't good for anything. And your brother…" she laughed bitterly, "God take pity on him, the bastard…just about every day he'd have some new bright idea on what to try at an attempt to restore function to my arm…oh he tried everything. He used to go to medical schools and hospitals and watch the doctors perform surgeries and all sorts of new experimental physical therapies on people with paralyzed arms." She shook her head, "Nothing worked…and one day he got what I have to consider to be the dumbest idea he ever had. He bought a bunch of that modeling clay, or plaster…you know, the stuff they make face molds with…and he had to uncurl my fist and he would stick large pieces of that gunk in between each finger and he would leave it at that for hours."

"What on earth for?" Methos asked.

"He thought that the muscles would adapt to being straightened out instead of curled up as they had been for so long and quit balling up when he took it off. Sort of like when you put a weight down on a book that the flap's sticking up…eventually after having the heavy weight press down on it for so long, it returns to its regular position of laying flat. Dumbest idea a person could ever have…and you know it actually worked? He took the stuff off and my hand was straight for the first time in years. But all that time that he had to do everything for both of us…it was awful. I've used many choice words over the years to describe how it was but you really can't explain having to go through all that. Not only was it embarrassing, it was painful, and exhausting, and just plain tired. To this day I don't know why he never just up and left in the middle of the night and get away from it."

"Well," Methos replied, "That's not how Kronos does anything."

"It might've been easier if he had," she told him, "Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"Shortly after the accident…I considered letting him go his own way and I'd figure things out for myself…but I never said anything to him, because I really didn't know if I _could_ survive on my own, and he always stayed. That right away told me he wasn't too bright…anybody would've taken the first opportunity to get the hell out."

"Except that…"

"I know, I know, your brother isn't anybody, he is he, you think I don't know that? I've had to live with him for over a hundred years, I know exactly what kind of person he is…and I know what he's had to put up with over these past years. Some parts of it weren't so bad, but needing him to dress me every morning. That got old very quickly. Every morning having to fumble with corsets, girdles, slips, petticoats, whalebone hoops, garters, dresses with no buttons but hooks and they had to be hooked up in the back, always in the back. Finally he came to his senses and threw out all that stuff, and started dressing me in his clothes. It saved time and spared us both from plenty of agony." Her eyes looked away and she seemed to drift away as she added, "I'll never forget that period of my life as long as I live."

"I know it's not my place," Methos said, "But I couldn't help but notice the last couple days you've been out here, you seem rather…fed up with Kronos."

She looked back at him and answered, "I love your brother, try to understand that. But it's getting so damn hard to put up with him every day. The problem is that after the explosion, he had to do everything and he never really got over that. Even now he still has trouble accepting the fact that I'm not helpless anymore."

"He can be like that sometimes," Methos told her.

"Yes, but this has been going on for almost a hundred years," she replied, "Sometimes I really am sorry I didn't let him go when I had the chance. Those 12 years that he had to take care of me…it _was_ nice that I didn't have to go through it alone, but I damn near went out of my mind. I wasn't born into royalty, I never knew what it was like to not do anything, from the time I could walk I was always working, always doing _something._ Anytime he learned of a new idea in the medical world that might work, he tried to get my arm to work again…I just focused on doing _anything_ on my own again."

* * *

Kronos stood out in the middle of the yard looking up at the sky. The day _and_ the night had been unusually warm and now the wind was blowing hard. He didn't know what it was but he had a feeling that something was going to happen tonight.

The door opened and he heard Louise call him as she came out. He looked to the front door and saw Louise standing on the porch in her nightgown and with his long duster slipped on over it. Over the last few weeks they both noticed that she was able to move her left arm a bit easier, though she still couldn't do anything with it just yet. He walked up to the porch and asked her, "What're you doing out here? You're supposed to be in bed."

"I was wondering what kept you," she replied.

"Well I'm back now, so get inside and," he reached around her and grabbed the front of the coat and started to slide it off her, "Take this thing off and go back to bed."

"This is…April, right?" Louise asked him.

"All month."

"Why's it so damn hot then?" she asked.

"I don't know," Kronos replied, "Must be going to be an early summer."

He hung up his coat and the two went back to their bedroom. Louise sat down on her side of the bed and laid herself out and drew the sheet up with her good arm. Kronos put out the kerosene lamp and got in beside her. The two gradually fell asleep and became oblivious to the howling screeching wind that was blowing outside.

Louise felt a light in the room shine against her eyelids and she woke up. The room was dark but she could hear the wind continuing to howl outside. She started to lie down again when a flash of lightning lit up the room, and it was then that she realized there was more noise outside than just the wind. Reaching over to the other side of the bed with her right arm, she shook Kronos and told him to get up.

"What is it?" he asked.

"What's that awful noise?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied as he got out of bed, "It sounds familiar though."

Louise scooted off the bed and went over to the window and opened the shutters and looked out, and she screamed.

"It's a tornado!"

Kronos ran over to the window and when the lightning struck again, he saw it too. It was a large, thick, black funnel tornado on the ground and it appeared to be heading their way. He grabbed Louise and pulled her away from the window. As Louise started to ask him what they were going to do because they had no cellar to vacate to, the strong winds picked up and blew a rain barrel in through the window and hit Kronos in the back of the head and knocked him out. He fell to the floor and pinned Louise, her bad arm included, underneath him. Louise tried to push him off of her but he was too heavy when she wasn't able to use her full body weight against him. The noise of the tornado grew louder and the winds blew harder, and Louise lay as still and as flat against the floor as she could and started praying that the tornado wouldn't hit them.

* * *

When Kronos woke up, it was morning and the storm had passed. He wasn't fully awake yet and was only half aware of Louise crying. He knew she was right beside him but he didn't see her just yet.

"Louise, what's wrong?" he asked.

Hers was a pained response as she answered, "You're on my arm!"

With that, he immediately pulled away and sat up. "Louise, I'm sorry!"

She grunted as she drew her left arm up and put her fist against her forehead as she recollected the eight hours she spent pinned beneath him.

"Louise!"

"What?"

"Your arm!"

Louise looked and realized she had been able to pull it above her head for the first time in 12 years.

"Oh my God," she said.

She tried to wiggle her fingers but they barely moved at all.

"I can't move my hand very well…but the feeling's starting to come back in my arm."

"It must just take time to recover," Kronos said.

"12 years, I'd say it damn well takes a long time, oh but this is wonderful," she said as she got up, "At least one good thing came out of that tornado."

"What hit me last night?" Kronos asked.

"I don't know," Louise replied, "I just saw something big get blown into the room and then next thing I knew, we were both on the floor," she said, "I was never so terrified in my life. I thought for sure that cyclone would come this way and snatch us both up."

"Whatever it was," he replied, "It must have hit me pretty hard if it was eight hours like you said."

"I counted every minute of it, believe me, it _was_. Kronos."

"Hmm?"

"Let's get out of here, I don't want to be here anymore," she said.

"Louise, it doesn't matter where we go, they still have tornadoes anywhere we could go."

"I know, but I just don't want to stay here anymore, do you understand?" Louise asked.

"I think so," Kronos replied, "We'll get everything of ours that's not broken and we'll get out of here."

There wasn't anything Kronos could say at that time that could make Louise any happier than she was when he said that. She ran over to him, jumped on him and swung her arms around his back and held on as she kissed him. He put her down and said, "Don't get so excited just yet, we have to get out of here first."

"How?" Louise asked, "How will we get out?"

"If that thing didn't get down to the railroad tracks, we'll hop on the next train leaving town," Kronos told her.

There weren't many of their belongings left that were in one piece; most of their stuff had blown away during the storm and much of what was left was ruined. Kronos dressed in the one suit he had left and Louise put his coat on over her nightgown as she had no clothes left. Kronos went over to the bed, opened a hidden compartment in the headboard, removed a handful of 50 dollar notes; the last of his more recent bank holdup.

"How much do we still have?" Louise asked.

"Enough," he replied, "Come on."

He grabbed her by the sleeve of his coat and they walked out of their house for the last time. They had to walk through and jump over an obstacle course of everything the storm had blown through during the night. The town they had lived in for the last 15 years was no longer recognizable by any standards. Homes were destroyed; people were dead, glass crunched beneath their feet as they stepped over the things that had been blown out of the windows. As they made it halfway between their home and the train tracks, they passed by the remains of a clothing store; the panes of glass smashed and half the inventory hanging out the windows. Kronos got an idea and headed over there with Louise right behind him, demanding to know what was going through his head now.

Shoving the door in, Kronos stepped over the broken furniture and started digging through a pile of discarded coats and furs that were on the floor.

"What in the hell are you looking for?" Louise asked.

It was at that moment that he found it and picked up a long fox fur coat.

"Take my coat off and put this on," he told her.

Not sure why she was humoring him, Louise did as she was told. The coat was too big and the sleeves were too long; given the everlasting condition of her left arm, it was exactly what she needed.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now we get to the train."

* * *

"Back to Texas," Louise said as they got off the train and took in their surroundings, "You're not too imaginative, are you?"

"You just said you wanted to get out," Kronos said, "You don't want to stay here, fine, we'll find out where the train here is going and we'll get on it."

"Oh never mind, we're already here, we might as well make the best of it," she replied as they started walking, "Now we have to start all over again and get another house, more furniture, new clothes, make up new names and life stories."

"You remember what it says in Ecclesiastics," Kronos told her.

"There's nothing new under the sun," they both answered.

"And when," she said as she turned to him, "Did you ever read the Bible?"

Half of his mouth crept upward in a demented smile as he answered, "You'd be surprised what all I've done in my time."

Louise guffawed as she said to him, "Ain't nothing you can do to surprise me, you never could. I've always known you better than you know yourself. That's why it works the two of us being together. Although, I suppose it'll work, us coming back here. It has to have been long enough nobody would recognize you."

"And definitely nobody is going to recognize this," Kronos said as he grabbed a handful of the fox fur, "You forget when we left Texas you were wearing my coat because you didn't have any other clothes."

"And we returned to Texas in the same situation," she replied, "But Kronos, we have spent the last 20 years chased by I don't know how many lynch mobs and lawmen, this time, try _not_ to get the famous Texas Rangers and their _friends_ involved."

With a snort, Kronos responded, "You leave their friends to me."

"Still a few old scores to settle," Louise commented as she hiked up her nightgown and kicked him, "You never could do anything right, could you? Couldn't just finish that bastard off and be done with it. No, you had to wind up getting shot for the 20th time and buried yet again. And _who_ had to come and dig you up when everybody wasn't looking?"

"Louise," Kronos said to her in a warning tone, "If we have to go through this again, I swear to you I'm walking into the next tornado we see."

"Kronos," she replied in a tone to match his, "If_ I_ have to go through this again, you won't have to walk, I'll push you."

* * *

"Your brother and I never did get along _too_ well, but we always managed to survive one another," Louise told Methos, "And all in all I don't think we've done so badly."

"It still blows my mind that you two were married for so long and Kronos never said anything," Methos said.

"Well you know your brother, he doesn't like others keeping secrets from him but he does fancy keeping his own," Louise said.

"Yes but I still can't figure out why he would want to keep this from his own family."

"Your guess is as good as mine, though I suspect it's because he's embarrassed of me," Louise said, "After my little accident I was for quite some time what you might call 'damaged goods', and I still am."

"Surely you don't think…" Methos started to say, but was cut off.

"Your brother is not a man of vanity, this I know. However, Methos, you do have to admit there's quite a world of difference of having a six inch scar running down your face and this," Louise held up her arm, "What he has, you can explain…I can never explain this, not to anybody. Don't think it's my idea of a good time to bundle up in black gloves and furs in 85 degree weather. Oh no, that is your ingenious brother's idea. Don't misunderstand, I couldn't care less if you all knew, I'm holding it over his head right now…but I won't. For some reason it means so much to him that nobody find this out, you'd almost think _he_ was the one deformed instead of me, but..."

"But why does it matter?" Methos asked, "And why would it to him especially?"

"I don't know," Louise said, "I've tried figuring that out. The only thing I can think of is we've kept it a secret from the whole bloody world for so long now; perhaps it's just a habit hard for him to break. He _can_ be stubborn like that, you know."

"I know," Methos replied, "I've put up with him off and on for four thousand years, believe me I know."

"And how, I ask," Louise said, "Have you managed not to take his head yet?"

"I never wanted it," Methos answered.

"Neither do I," Louise replied, "But that doesn't stop me from thinking about it. Oh, of course I would never do it…but you know, divorce just wouldn't be enough to finally be rid of that pest. He gets on my nerves so much lately I'm amazed myself that I haven't broken his neck yet."

"I have no doubt that you could," Methos told her, "From the moment I saw you it was very obvious."

"What was?"

"That Kronos found and married a woman who was like himself," Methos answered.

And it was in the moment that he said that, that it came to him again. He knew that he had seen this woman somewhere before, but he couldn't figure out where. But he felt he was so close to the answer, it was only a matter of time before he found it.

"Some might call that narcissism in its severest form," Louise said, "Except that half the time your brother can't even stand himself."

Methos nodded, "I know that too."

"Also," Louise told him, "There is one big difference in him and myself. Though to be perfectly honest it's not exactly _us_ wherein lies the difference. You see, your brother, he's a man and man has two heads, and usually he thinks with the wrong one. But that's beside the point…men, they storm off into battle and they prepare to slaughter many, and what's the end result? Most of them come back to be buried. Now, women are smarter in this area because we don't go charging off screaming like a bunch of idiots…oh no, women will sit and be idle and calm and they will just think. They'll sit and they'll think for a long time and if it's called for they'll lay awake nights too until they've figured out the perfect plan. _Then_ we act on it, and few of us are ever caught or held accountable. Which is why," she concluded, "I've spent the last 100 years digging up your brother from a grave 40 times, instead of him unearthing me. Men want to get away with murder, but it's usually the women who usually do…not quite as flashy as the men would do it but their victims aren't any less dead when it's all done."

"You don't say," Methos said, not sure if he should laugh or worry.

"Oh yes, that's the secret. Men like to think they know what's going on, but their wives know more than they ever will; which is why your brother is still somewhat happily married, because he is blissfully unaware of what goes through my head most of the time."

"No offense but that just seems to add to the theory of he married somebody exactly like himself," Methos told her.

"I keep wondering," Louise said as she looked to the windows, "When his time comes, who will it be to make the killing strike? Me, another Immortal, or himself? It's rather unnerving when you look at your marriage in that perspective of will you kill your husband first, or will he beat you to the punch and do it himself?"

"You really think Kronos has it in him to do a thing like that?" Methos asked.

Louise looked back at him with full amazement in her eyes and asked, "Don't you?"

Methos had no answer.

"It'll be getting light out soon," she said as she got up, "I better get back before he wakes up and finds out I'm still gone. There's already too many dangerous ideas floating around in his head, I don't need him coming up with anymore where I'm concerned."

As she went up for what was left of the night, Methos closed his eyes for a moment and yawned. This was getting to be exhausting and he was still as confused now as he was when this whole mess first started.

* * *

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, the sun was shining into the living room and Caspian had come down the stairs and into the room.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

"Now I know how King Shahryer felt listening to Scheherazade every night," Methos commented.

"What?"

"Nothing, where's Kronos?" Methos asked.

"I haven't seen him," Caspian answered, "Why?"

"No reason," Methos replied, "Caspian, didn't you say that around the turn of the century you had a job in the boiler deck of a steamboat?"

He had to stop and think. "I suppose so, why?"

"What happened? I mean why did you quit?"

"I didn't quit, the boiler exploded," Caspian replied.

"Right, and what happened to the people on the boat?"

He had to think about that too. "Most of them were killed in the initial blast, it was a small boat."

"Right, but what happened to them?"

"What do you think happened? They were blown apart, body parts flying all over the boiler deck, arms over here, heads rolling down there…and the ones that weren't blown up fell overboard either from the quake of the explosion or from panic, and those who were the latter drowned."

"When it blew up," Methos said, "Was anybody trapped in the room? I mean when the boiler exploded and it broke apart, did it fall on anybody?"

"It all happened so fast you couldn't tell what was going on at the time," Caspian responded, "A couple were though, I think…"

"And…nobody pulled them out from under it, did they?"

"They were either dead or almost there, nobody who wanted to stay alive saw much point in it," Caspian replied, "As for me, the blast threw me out of the room and knocked me against the deck's railing so hard it cracked my skull. Why?"

"No reason," Methos shook his head, "Except, I can't help but wonder if those people trapped in the boiler room had been pulled out from it all, what their bodies would have looked like."

"Burnt to a cinder most likely," Caspian answered, "It doesn't matter now, they're all dead, and they've been dead for over 100 years, and even if they hadn't been blown up they probably would've died soon after anyway. So what difference does it make to anybody now?"

Methos said nothing and only nodded in agreement.

"What're you doing down here anyway?" Caspian asked.

"I couldn't sleep," Methos replied, "I've had a lot to think about lately."

And right now he was thinking about something else Louise had told him before she had gone up for the night. About how women would sit idle and lay awake nights planning to kill someone. These last few nights that she had stayed up with him, Methos knew was just the tip of the iceberg. He couldn't prove it but he knew that Louise had been going without much sleep for quite some time; and it was starting to show, and it wouldn't be long before Kronos noticed it too. He couldn't help but wonder; whose demise was she staying up nights to plan out?

* * *

At about half past nine, Methos saw Kronos coming down the stairs and he also noted that his brother was alone.

"Where's Louise?"

"She said she wanted to go into town and get something. She didn't say what, and I've been married to her long enough to know not to ask."

"How long ago was that?" Methos asked.

"Half an hour ago, why?" Kronos asked.

Methos didn't say what was really going through his mind and only responded, "I didn't see her come downstairs."

"You must've just missed her, I saw her leave," Kronos insisted.

"Well…it's about an hour's drive to town and back," Methos said.

"Not the way we drive," Kronos told him.

Methos nodded, "True."

He looked back to the windows and noticed that it was getting dark out.

"Looks like it's going to rain," he said, "I hope Louise gets back before the storm hits."

"She'll be alright," Kronos replied, "She's a tough bird."

"Is that why you married her?" Methos asked.

Kronos didn't say anything for a minute and he refused to make eye contact with his brother. With a knowing smirk on his face he answered, "That might be part of it."

"What's the other part?"

"I love her."

"How did the two of you meet?"

"That was a long time ago," Kronos said, "Let's see…I was in Texas in…1857, and Louise was working in a saloon as a…" he smiled as the memory came back to him and he changed his original answer, "Well she worked there for a while, but the night after we met, we both left when the Texas Rangers came looking for me."

"You never knew how to stay out of trouble, did you?" Methos asked.

"Not really. After we left, we held up a bank and hopped on a train heading for California. Not too long after we settled there, we got married."

"I can just imagine," Methos said, "She probably dragged you by the ear all the way to the church."

"No, actually it was my idea," Kronos replied, "I figured if we were married I could keep a better eye on her and she wouldn't get us into so much trouble. And boy was the joke on me. It seemed we got in even deeper after we married."

Methos was cautious not to accidentally bring up anything Louise had told him and not Kronos. "And…did you stay in California long?"

"Nope, there was always somebody coming after us, fortunately none of them were ever any Immortals. We went back and forth for a good number of years, first California, then Mississippi, then the Arizona Territory, then Louisiana…"

"And eventually back to Texas," Methos guessed.

"More than once. The first time we went back there, it wasn't long before the Texas Rangers came for me again, and they'd brought a friend."

"An Immortal?"

"First one I'd encountered beside Louise in 15 years. And if I ever see him again…"

"Who was it, do you know?" Methos asked.

"Duncan MacLeod as my memory recalls."

Methos said nothing and tried not to look as if he knew anything about that.

"I guess it must've been about 20 years before we went back to Texas after that," Kronos told him, "We probably never would have returned except a tornado blew through our home in Alabama and Louise wouldn't stay still for anything after that. So we hopped on the first train heading out of state and when we got off, we were back in Texas."

"That's a long way to go just because of a tornado," Methos noted.

"Actually, we stopped in Louisiana first and tried settling down there. But something happened during that time that neither one of us wanted much to stay afterwards."

That struck a nerve of curiosity in Methos. "What happened?"

* * *

Louise had gradually been getting some use back into her left arm and had insisted she could look after herself again and there was no need for him to sit around the house all day with her. Kronos was hesitant at first but he knew she was right. And that had been where the whole mess had started that he found her out in the front yard, half alive and bloody. Even though she had recovered by the next day, he refused to leave her alone after that for three weeks.

"You're just being childish," she had told him one night.

"_I_ am?" Kronos asked.

"Yes, you think because one bad thing happens to me that if we're not joined to the hip it'll happen again."

"Louise, when I found you, you didn't wake up for over 12 hours, I don't want to take a chance on you losing your head next time."

"That's not going to happen and you know it," she responded, "Kronos, I appreciate your concern but you're not doing either one of us any favors. If we have to spend another day together like this I think we're both going to kill each other. Or at the very least, I'll kill you. Mankind was meant to marry and be together, but not like this. You need to get out of here and find something to do. I know you too well. If you're not busy with something, you get bored and then you get into trouble. You need to get out of the house and do something that'll keep your mind, and your hands occupied. If you stay here with me all day, before long you'll go crazy."

Kronos said nothing in response and still didn't like the idea of leaving her alone. Louise less than subtly sat on his lap and put her arm around him and said to him, "Nothing's going to happen to me. You can't protect me forever, Kronos, I've taken care of myself for over four thousand years without anybody's help."

"I know that, Louise, but things are different now."

"Not so much…a few more years and I'll be able to do everything I used to, but it doesn't do me much good you trying to coddle me all the time. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, Kronos, you have to believe that."

"I want to," he replied.

"Then do, and tomorrow morning, leave me alone and go find something to do."

Morning came and against his better judgment, he left her alone for the day. When he returned at night it was with great relief that he found she was alright. For the next few weeks he'd leave in the morning to work, return home at night and find everything was fine. It was when he finally started to relax and think Louise was right and that nothing bad was going to happen that things took another turn.

Louise had been in the kitchen for hours working on dinner for when Kronos got home, which would be soon. It would be a while before she had to worry about anything burning so she decided to go into the front room, lay down and get off her feet for a while. It was still getting dark early and it wouldn't be long before the sun was completely down. After a few minutes of trying to relax, Louise heard something through the window. It sounded like somebody was outside, but it wasn't time for Kronos to return yet and they never had any visitors.

Not saying anything and acting very calmly, Louise got up from the couch, went over to the rack where Kronos hanged his extra coat, reached into it and took a pistol out of one of the pockets. She cocked the hammer back and very slowly and quietly made her way to the front door and slipped outside. Looking around, she saw a man trying to sneak around to the side of the house; Louise noticed that he wasn't Immortal, so she stepped off the front porch and stalked behind him and decided to have a little fun.

It was at this time that Kronos was returning home from work at the blacksmith's. He was exhausted and just wanted to eat, get drunk and go to bed. As he neared home he heard the unmistakable noise of a gunshot and he knew immediately where it had come from; and as he ran he only prayed that the right person got shot.

"Louise!"

She stood by the side of the house, looking very unaffected by the sight of the dead man laying on the ground with the blood pouring out from the back of his head. When Kronos got close to her he grabbed her up in his arms to make sure she was alright. As he looked her over he felt something press below his stomach. He pulled away and saw she still held the gun that had killed the man; almost as if she wasn't even aware of what she'd done.

"Louise, is this the man who attacked you?"

She never answered him, all she said in response was, "It's over."


	7. Chapter 7

"Louise wouldn't sleep after that, she hardly said anything, I had to get her out of there before she lost her mind," Kronos said.

"But you never found out who that man was or why he was there?" Methos asked.

"No, she never said," he replied.

"So what happened from there? You went back to Texas and…"

"Well we stayed there for about another 20 years," Kronos answered, "After that…"

He was cut off when they heard the car pull up outside. By this time the sky was almost as dark as night and they both knew that the storm was going to strike at any moment, so they ran out to meet her.

Louise got out of the car, closed the door, took a step towards the house and started to fall, except they caught her at the last second. Helping her up, they saw that her face was flushed and she was shaking.

"What's wrong?" Kronos asked.

Her head swayed from one side to the other for a minute as if she was simply in a daze and couldn't answer. Then she let out a horrific noise neither were familiar with and pulled away from them both.

"This sardine can of yours gave out on the highway on the way back here when there was a semi heading my way and I just narrowly escaped being hit by the damn thing."

A twitch had developed in her shoulders and was very noticeable as she explained. She backed away from them both and started for the front door

"I need a drink and I need to lay down," she said as she walked up the stairs, "Already I've had a day that's shot to hell, my nerves included."

The two men followed close behind her and when she reached the top of the stairs, she turned around to yell at them and that was when she lost her balance and fell off the top step. Methos caught her and they saw that she had passed out.

"What's the matter with her?" Kronos asked.

"I'm not sure," Methos said, "But I think we better take her into the bedroom and lay her down."

Louise woke up and she was on top of the bed in their room. The window next to the bed was open and a strong wind was blowing in; she could smell the rain and she knew it would start at any moment. The door opened and Methos came in carrying a glass of bourbon.

"I thought you might be in need of a drink," he said.

"I need more than that, but it'll do," she replied as she took the glass, "Thank you."

"Louise, have you ever been to a psychiatrist?" Methos asked.

She laughed as she swallowed the booze. "I don't need a psychiatrist, only crazy people see psychiatrists and I'm not crazy. Do _you_ think I'm crazy?"

"This isn't about what I think, Louise."

"Isn't it? What is it you're trying to get at?" she asked.

"Well I just…I wondered if you'd mind my asking you a few questions."

Louise smiled and lay back against the pillows and crossed one foot over the other, "Okay, Doc, where shall we began? I don't remember my mother and I had no father so you can rule out my wanting to sleep with either of them. That brings us up to now, what do the modern head shrinkers do with their patients besides prescribing them cocaine and sleeping with them?"

Methos seated himself on the dresser and started to talk when Louise sat up and said, "Oh wait, where's Kronos?"

"Downstairs."

"Okay then," she laid back down, "We should be able to talk freely then."

"Just to make sure," Methos went over to the door and closed it.

* * *

Half an hour later, the door finally opened and Methos walked out into the hall. Kronos had been pacing outside of the room and he was most anxious to find out what had been going on.

"What's wrong with her?" he demanded to know.

"Kronos, calm down, I've examined Louise and aside from one small problem she appears to be as alright as is possible given the condition she has."

"What problem?"

"Simply put, exhaustion…she's going to be alright but she needs to rest. As far as I can gather, Kronos, she hasn't slept for at least two weeks."

"That's not possible," he shook his head, "Every night she sleeps like the dead."

"No, Kronos, she just acts like she does because she didn't want you to know," Methos replied, "She needs to sleep, that's all that's wrong with her."

It seemed that only the last part of that registered in his brain because the next thing he said was, "Then I can see her."

"Yes but I wouldn't advise staying with her too long," Methos said, "She asked me to get something from the car, and when I get back I think it would be wise if you let her rest."

Methos headed down the stairs and Kronos went into their bedroom to see his wife. She laid in bed, her eyes already closed but he knew she wasn't asleep just yet. He hovered over her and she opened her eyes, halfway, and looked up at him.

"What's wrong, Kronos?" she asked.

"How are you feeling?" he wanted to know.

"I'm tired," she replied.

"So I was told, what's been going on with you?"

She rubbed one eye and explained, "I went to town and got some sleeping pills. I didn't tell you that I was having trouble sleeping because I didn't want you to worry. You've done quite enough of that over the years already."

He sat down beside her and stroked through the hair on the top of her head. "You still should've told me."

"I know…" she responded, "But I just couldn't sleep, I didn't see it as being worth keeping you awake all night for."

Methos appeared in the doorway with a box in his hand. He gave it to Louise who opened it and took out a white bottle of sleeping pills. After swallowing two of them she laid down and closed her eyes and it was then that Methos quietly suggested to his brother that they leave her alone.

"What's going on?" Kronos demanded to know as they left the room, "What do you mean leave her alone?"

Methos closed the door behind him and answered, "Kronos, I spent some time talking to your wife. And no matter what I asked her, you kept coming into the conversation. I think that the cause of her problem is subconscious stress from having you hovering around her all the time."

"I don't believe that," Kronos said.

"No, of course not, but Kronos you have to realize it's important that she does rest, and it's important that we do what we can to let her sleep. So I'm asking you, for today, stay away from her, don't wake her up, don't talk to her, don't even go into the bedroom."

Methos had a good idea that there was more to Louise's problem than met the eyes, but he wasn't about to tell his brother that, no matter how much an announcement like this upset him.

* * *

The rain beat down all afternoon and was accompanied by loud thunder; all that seemed to be missing was the lightning and then they'd have a perfect storm. Methos stood at the front door watching the rain pour down in heavy sheets and watching it pool up on the ground. Silas was off in another corner of the house tending to a raccoon he'd found earlier in the day; Caspian was seated at the table in the dining room reading law books, and Kronos hadn't moved from where he'd sat in the living room since they'd come downstairs. Methos peered into the living room and saw him, and it seemed Kronos was doing everything he could not to jump for the ceiling. He had a good idea that every nerve within his brother was shot to hell, just like his wife.

Methos knew how hard it had to be for Kronos to not go up and see his wife; especially after talking with him earlier in the day and getting a better idea of just how close he was to Louise. He'd talked with Louise, idly playing with her mind, looking for some answers, and she hadn't given him the ones he was looking for, but he'd found some nonetheless. And he hoped that after she'd gotten a few hours of sleep in during the day, she'd be up for explaining more that night after Kronos had gone to sleep. He still couldn't help but wonder exactly why everything that she had said to him had to be kept from her husband. But then he caught himself and remembered that he knew his brother, and he knew how his brother reacted to certain things. It was certainly possible she had a logical reason for keeping all this from Kronos, but Methos couldn't figure out yet just what it was.

He considered the possibility that perhaps he should talk to Kronos and try to explain some of it; but he wasn't sure what all he'd say to his little brother; and what would he say and what couldn't he afford to say?

Deciding he ought not stand around for too long and draw attention to himself, Methos waltzed over to the table and read over Caspian's shoulder for about a minute before his brother turned around and looked up at him.

"Yes?"

"Something I can do for you?" Caspian asked.

"No," Methos replied, "How's it going?"

Caspian had spent the last few months preparing for a new identity and new occupation, and soon he was going to take the bar exam to become a prosecuting lawyer in criminal court. Who better, Methos had thought, to discredit cold blooded murderers and the such, than somebody who knew the ins and outs of homicide so well himself?

"I don't know why it's necessary to know all these cases, do they really think a lawyer's going to be stupid enough to argue something on the foregrounds of a past case that doesn't exist?"

"You've caught lizards before," Methos said, "You tell me how slippery they can get. Though one thing I'm not sure of."

"What's that?" Caspian asked.

"How to seriously represent yourself as a prosecution lawyer when you look like the defendant, if you're not careful they might load you up on the prison bus by mistake," Methos replied as he patted the tattoo on the side of Caspian's head.

"Very funny."

"Why a lawyer?" Methos asked, "Why not a guard in the prison? Then you can beat the hell out of them all you want."

"First thing's first," Caspian replied, "First thing is to get them there to begin with."

"So what?" Methos asked, "Spend 20 years putting them in prison, then apply as a guard and beat them to death?"

"That's about it," Caspian answered.

"Well, it's a plan," Methos replied, "I suppose."

The whole house seemed to shake with the next explosion of thunder. The old chandeliers in the ceiling rattled violently and Methos stepped back from the table incase the bolts should wear loose and it come crashing down.

"If this keeps up," he said, "It'll be a wonder if the house is still standing come tomorrow morning."

A thought came to Methos and he turned back to Kronos to ask him if it was by pure dumb luck that tornadoes always seemed to follow him around or if he was cursed with it. Kronos looked to be half asleep by now except that he appeared to be talking to himself. He said nothing but his mouth was going through the motions of very anxiously saying something. Methos didn't know what to make of it, and he told Caspian to keep an eye on Kronos while he went upstairs to make sure Louise was still asleep.

As he went up the stairs he recalled briefly reading on the pill box that two pills would be strong enough within an hour's time to make a person sleep for six hours. He had a good idea before the day was through, Louise would be swallowing most of those pills to make up for lost time. As he reached the top step he crept along the hallway to the bedroom and opened the door. The storm hadn't disturbed her in the least; there she still remained curled up in the middle of the bed laying on her side.

There was something about how she was now that rang a note of familiarity in Methos. Taking a step forward, he stepped into the room and got a closer look at the woman, and that was when it seemed to hit him.

He remembered several thousand years ago when the four of them were together, going early one morning to see Kronos to discuss their plans for a raid. He entered the tent and saw his brother was still asleep with a woman, one of the slaves, pressed up against him. She was not dark skinned by nature but rather from toiling in the sun all the days, and her hair was curled and dark red. And now…her skin was a different color, her hair was lighter, and shorter, and there was something to her overall appearance that was different, but he knew it was the same woman.

Not sure what to do, Methos backed out of the room, went back downstairs, got Caspian and had him come upstairs to see it for himself.

"What in the hell is this about?" Caspian asked.

"You know how we've been saying we've seen Louise somewhere before?" Methos asked.

"So?"

They reached the hallway right outside the bedroom and Methos told him, "Look in there!"

Caspian did, and at first he didn't get what his brother was babbling on about, and then he saw it, and his hands clenched into fists immediately, remembering all the times that she had humiliated him in front of the others by beating him to near death.

Methos grabbed Caspian by his collar and jerked him back before he could go into the room and forced him back down the stairs.

"I _knew_ I'd seen her before."

"Well remember, Caspian, you couldn't beat her up then, and you sure as hell can't now that Kronos is married to her," Methos told him.

"_Why_ would he marry a thing like that?"

"Who knows?"

They reached the bottom of the stairs and returned to the dining room.

"I don't get it at all," Caspian told Methos.

"Neither do I," Methos responded, "Read your books."

Methos went into the living room and saw that Kronos had fallen asleep sitting in the middle of the couch. He went over to his brother, pushed him down and laid him out, and when he did, Kronos opened his eyes and started to sit up, and he appeared to be in a daze. "Louise?"

Methos put his hand on Kronos' shoulder and told him, "She's fine, Kronos, she's still sleeping."

"Good."

Methos could see Kronos was well on his way to unconsciousness as well.

"I know it's difficult not being able to see her, but she needs to rest and the only way that's going to happen is if she doesn't have people barging in on her when she's in bed," Methos told him, "Now lie down and go to sleep. You're looking about half dead with it yourself."

Kronos laid back against the arm of the couch and Methos got up and returned to the dining room and sat down beside his brother.

"So now what're we going to do?" Caspian asked.

"I don't know. I'm sure that there's more going on here than either of us knows about, but I'm not sure what it is," Methos told him.

"Do you think _she'll_ have anything to say about it all?" Caspian asked.

"She might, but not if you start hovering over her like a vulture. At night when all of you are asleep, she talks to me and tells me what's going on. But if that's going to happen again tonight, she needs to be awake, Kronos needs to be asleep…"

"And I have to be anywhere else," Caspian commented.

"Yes," Methos replied.

"I can do that. But are you sure you can trust her?"

"The things she's told me these last few nights, Caspian," he said, "I don't have a choice, I have to."

* * *

The storm continued all through the afternoon and did not lighten up in the slightest by the time night fell.

Kronos awoke when he felt somebody poking him in the shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Methos standing over him.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Well, it's night," Methos answered, "You were asleep for quite a while."

He sat up and tried to see straight, "And Louise?"

"She's awake now, Silas took her up her dinner and he said she seems to be doing alright," Methos told him.

Kronos nodded as he got up. He went upstairs and found Louise in the bedroom, the bed was made and she was dressed for the evening in one of his black T-shirts, a pair of his jeans and she was looking herself over in the mirror as she fixed her hair.

"How are you?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she replied, never seeing him, only his reflection in the mirror, "And you?"

"Same," he answered as he went over to her, "Louise, why didn't you tell me you couldn't sleep?"

"Because it wasn't anything to worry about and I knew you would," Louise told him, "I knew how you would react. It's an instinct in you now from all the years that you had to protect me from everything. Keep it up and one of these days you're going to find yourself in the loony bin."

He walked over to her and saw both their reflections in the mirror. It seemed with every passing day that they each bore more resemblance to the other. He put his arms around her and said, "I suppose I am a little crazy with it all."

"That would be the understatement of the century," Louise bluntly responded.

"It's just that I don't want to see anything else happen to you," he told her.

"And I appreciate it," she said as she broke away from him, "Really I do, but you have to remember, Kronos, before I met up with you again, I had my own life and I was the only person looking after my best interest. And I managed to survive 4000 years on my own so I like to think I know what I'm doing."

"I know," Kronos replied, "I just don't want you getting hurt again."

Louise smiled amusedly, "Not quite what you'd expect to hear from one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

* * *

As the night wore on, the storm seemed to grow stronger and beat down harder than it had all day. As the witching hour drew near, Silas, Caspian and Kronos had all gone up for the night, and when the clock struck the hour, it was just Methos and Louise seated in the living room again.

"I wanted to thank you for what you did today, Methos," she said, "I appreciate it…it's been a long time since I'd had any time or peace and quiet to myself."

"What is it though that you haven't been able to sleep the last few weeks?" Methos asked.

Her gaze dropped to the floor for a minute. She reached into one of the pockets on her nightgown and she took out two small white bottles of pills that were identical. She held them up for him to get a good look at both of them and she met his gaze.

"This one," she held up one, "Is barbiturates, this one," she held up the other, "Is speed. I've been slipping one to my husband and taking the other myself for the last two weeks. You can guess which he's been getting and which I've been taking."

So that was it, Methos realized. That was why Kronos had been sleeping late in the mornings, and clear through the nights and Louise had been up till all hours.

"But why?" Methos asked, "Why have you been taking them?"

"I needed to stay awake," she answered, "I needed to be able to think, and work…"

Before Methos could ask, work on what?, Louise looked at him and said, "Methos…you know, don't you?"

"Know what?"

"You, Silas, Caspian, you've all figured it out, haven't you? Who I am, or rather who I was," she said with a sinister glare in her eyes as she continued, "The mysterious little slave, who she is, nobody knows, where she's from, nobody knows, herself included. But damn if she'll go quietly, 'Get up you damned babe!'" she laughed, "I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out."

"You knew we were up there today?" Methos asked.

"No, but I've been noticing some things over the past few days. People standing in the doorway when I'm in bed, who disappear when I get up. Every so often when I'd say something to you, it would strike a chord in your memory and you would look at me as though you were trying to remember. I knew that you were going to figure it out, I just didn't know when."

"Why did you try and keep it a secret?" Methos asked.

"Why?" she asked, "Centuries pass, nations come and go…everybody dies and those who don't go on to become new people, different things. I was just as entitled to a better life as any of you were, more so because I didn't have anybody to watch my back when I did anything. Every other woman I encountered, the Immortals especially, were either married, or whores, they'd do anything to get a man's attention, and string him long enough that when it became known she needed somebody to protect her, the men would do it. I would never do anything like that, everything I did I went into alone, and that's how I lived for 4000 years. I made a name for myself and if I was going to be remembered for anything, it was _not_ going to be for living as some poor slave. You can understand that, Methos, given how your early life was."

He could understand it, and it made sense. He no longer wanted to be remembered as Death on a horse but he also didn't want to be remembered as the slave boy of some rich pharaoh he served at the time of his first death either.

"And what about Kronos?" Methos asked.

"After we married, not too much changed at first. Before my little…predicament, we went along pretty much as we had before we married. After though…" she laughed, "He would hardly leave my side for anything, even after I was able to do everything for myself again. He was really shaken up when I had my accident, like nothing I had ever seen before, and like nothing I've seen since. It strikes me as being very unusual that for a man of 4000 years, he could react such as he has."

"And I'm sure his behavior over the years has been nothing short of annoying," Methos commented.

She laughed, "You can say that again. But no matter what was ever going on, I knew that I'd always have him around, whether I wanted him to or not. I guess, from the beginning when we all first met, there was something between us. I mean…well look at me, Methos, I'm not the easiest thing in the world to look at. I've seen the sorts of women that guys fall over, and I've never been anything like them. I've never been nice, I've never been pleasant, I've sure as hell never been pretty, I've never been soft spoken or laid back or any crap like that. And yet your brother saw something in me, he wanted me, why? That's the question I've been asking for hundreds of years, and I don't think I'm any closer to finding the answer." She laughed again, "Though a few times it worked to my advantage. I remember one time when Kronos had to leave town for some kind of work he was doing. The night he was supposed to come back, he'd sent me a telegram saying that he'd meet me at some bar. So I went there and ordered a few drinks and waited around for him to come in…"

* * *

She remembered the night very well. It was the middle of summer somewhere in the 1930s in Europe. The place was full of smoke and slow sultry music as the band played. Couples danced, others sat at their tables and smoked cigarettes, the rest sat at the bar and got drunk. Louise had been waiting around for an hour for Kronos to return and she was starting to get bored. As she waited, she glanced over at the couples dancing, and she pondered whether she ought to go over to one of the men, pinch him and ask if she might cut in. Oh, she laughed to herself, that would be quite a sight when her husband finally stepped in, especially given how jealous he could be.

The presence of another Immortal registered in her mind and she thought that finally she could get out of this booze hall. Before she could turn around, she felt somebody grab her arm and heard a feminine voice say, "Well hello there, handsome."

She turned around and came face to face with another woman. She was tall, thin, her hair was dark and cut short and she was dressed in a black sparkling dress that could probably be considered one step flimsier than a flapper dress. She wore black elbow length gloves on her hands that seemed to sparkle as well. Her black garters were showing, as were her pantyhose and everything else. Nobody had to take a second look at her to figure out what this woman did for a living.

Louise knew she was asking for trouble continuing to wear Kronos' suits, especially in this particular time period when she'd got her hair cut short, and she had stuffed it up under one of his hats and covered her hands with a set of his black gloves. But still she didn't think she could actually give anybody the impression she was a man.

The look on the woman's face was nothing short of hysterical as she realized the mistake she'd made.

"I…" she said as she took a step back, "I'm terribly sorry, I thought you were somebody else."

With a not so amused look on her face, Louise replied, "Fancy that, so did I."

The other woman pointed to the bar stool next to Louise and asked, "Somebody sitting here?"

Louise's eyes widened as she turned and saw the empty seat, turned back to the woman and said, "How many drinks have you had tonight?"

"I could see there's nobody sitting here," the woman said, "I was just being polite."

"You want to be polite," Louise said as she turned back to her gin, "Next time do the world a favor, wear twice as much underwear and half as much lipstick."

"Well I never," the woman replied as she sat down.

"Honey," Louise said as she looked her over again, "I don't think there's a person alive who'll believe that 'you never' anything."

A bartender came up and asked the lady what she wanted. In a sultry voice she asked for a martini, and when the bartender had gone she turned back to Louise and said, "You seem to be in an exceptionally rotten mood tonight."

"That's right," Louise told her, "And I don't care too bloody much _who_ I take it out on. So watch yourself."

The woman looked at Louise again and seemed to be looking her over. Through one slanted eye, Louise glared at the woman and demanded to know what the hell she was looking at.

"I'm going to assume that you're not going to try for my head," the woman said quietly.

"That wasn't on my agenda but don't press your luck," Louise warned her.

"Oh this is ridiculous, can't we just talk to each other like women?"

"That depends," Louise replied as the bartender came back with the drink, "What woman is going to talk to you?"

"Look," the other woman said, "Since we don't know each other, can't we at least try and act civilized?"

"Civilized? This is Berlin, there ain't no such animal," Louise said, "In any case, I don't even know your name."

The woman took a drink of her martini and extended her hand to Louise, "I'm Amanda."

Louise downed her drink before returning the gesture, "Louise Baron."

"Charmed, I'm sure," the woman replied less than enthusiastically, "So you said you were waiting on someone?"

"Yes…a gentleman friend," Louise replied.

Amanda laughed once and caught herself, "Oh you'll excuse me for laughing…it's just that…" she looked at Louise and her face started to crack up as she started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Louise asked.

"Oh nothing, it's just…" Amanda calmed herself, "I can't quite picture what kind of a man would…" she started laughing again.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Louise wanted to know.

"Oh it's nothing personal," Amanda told her, "It's just that, uh…well…how do you plan to go about attracting a man looking like that?"

"That's not my concern," Louise replied, "He's seen what I have to offer, and he likes it."

"I see," Amanda said, "I'm guessing he hasn't been with too many women. How's he supposed to know a good one when he sees it in your case?"

With a smug look on her face, Louise told her, "Honey, when you're as good at what you do as I am, you don't _have_ to advertise it to men, they just _know_."

"Well you'll pardon me for laughing, but I find that a little hard to believe," Amanda said.

They both felt the quickening of another Immortal approaching and they both turned to the door.

"Watch and learn," Louise said.

A few seconds later, the door opened and Kronos stepped in, looking once again like a lawyer in a dark three-piece suit and carrying a suitcase in one hand. He looked around and almost immediately spotted his wife at the bar and came over to her with open arms.

"Darling," she said as she threw her arms around him and held tightly to him, "When did you get into town?"

"About 15 minutes ago," Kronos replied.

"I didn't know the train was stopping that early," she said.

"It didn't," Kronos answered, "I jumped off the back car and worked my way here."

"Well now that you're here, can we go to the train station and get on one leaving?" Louise asked.

"Not tonight I'm afraid," he told her, "We'll have to leave in the morning. In the meantime however, I arranged for a room for us at a hotel not too far off from here."

"A hotel room for the night?!" Louise said for the woman at the bar to hear, "If you insist, dear."

* * *

"Oooh that woman was steaming when we left," Louise told Methos, "That's the thing I suppose. That woman had to go through her whole life trapping men with her good looks and her," she gestured her hands to suggest an hourglass figure, "Body, and once that worked, she kept her hooks in them by sleeping with them. That was her guarantee in anything, the only thing she knew how to do I suppose. I never had to worry about that, everything I got out of life I had to get for myself, by any means necessary and some means were more so than others."

"But you haven't had to do as much of that being married to Kronos, have you?" Methos asked.

"No, being with him makes things a little easier," Louise replied, "But not by much…not for quite some time."

She laughed once, humorlessly and told Methos, "Your brother's a saint, you know that? Oh, I don't mean like Joan of Arc or any of the angels she saw, but to put up with me for as long as he has, you'd have to be a saint, you really would. And, I remember you four guys from all those years ago. I knew what you all were, a bunch of murderous bastards, like most men were in those days."

"Well we're none of us perfect," Methos said.

"But I remember Kronos most of all, he was the most brutal, the most dangerous, the one who was _not_ to be crossed…and yet I don't have one single memory of him ever being mean to _me_, of him ever striking _me_. Why? Why do you suppose that was, Methos?"

"I don't know," he replied, "I guess there's truth in what they say."

"That true love happens to the strangest people?" Louise asked, "I've heard that expression before, I've also heard there's a sucker born every minute. But you know, all the years that we were together, oh we got angry at each other quite often, and I was always angry at him when I was hurt…and still I don't have one bad memory of being with him. He never beat me, he never raped me, he never threatened to leave me, and as absurd as it sounds, he never slept with another woman…never even looked as far as I know. I never took your brother for being much of a moral one."

"It's not morality," Methos told her, "It's love."

"Maybe so," Louise said, "But, in a couple days, ain't _none_ of it going to matter anymore."


	8. Chapter 8

"What are you talking about?" Methos asked.

"I mean, maybe so," Louise replied, "Maybe he really does love me, and always has, but why did he have to get so hung up on _me_? What did I do?"

"I don't know," Methos replied, "I just know that he was always crazy about it. It about killed him when you left."

Louise looked up and across the room to him with eyes full of curiosity, "What do you mean?"

"I don't blame you for leaving, but why did you have to run off in the middle of the night like you did and leave us all to wonder?" Methos asked, "Kronos about went out of his mind looking for you."

An expression of pure shock formed on her face, as if she'd heard the most baffling news in the world. "Is that what this is all about?" she asked, "You think I ran out on him?"

"Isn't that what happened?" Methos was confused now.

"Oh Methos, I didn't run out on Kronos…I had to leave, that night a man came into the camp and he kidnapped me. I…I don't think he was Immortal because you would have known if there was another one on the grounds, wouldn't you?"

"We would have known if anybody was there who shouldn't have been," Methos told her, "Nobody heard anything last night, nobody saw anything, all we knew was we all went to sleep and the next morning there wasn't a trace of you to be found."

"And Kronos thinks that I left him?" Louise asked, "He may have had his rough edges to him and he may have grabbed me by the neck and shaken me when I didn't answer him…but I didn't walk out on him."

"I don't understand," Methos said, "What happened?"

"Well," she thought for a moment before she said, "Do you remember the time that I went missing and Kronos searched all day for me and I was down by the river all beaten and bruised and sunburned?"

"I remember," Methos said, "Kronos was so sure that Caspian had done it because you two never got along and you were always beating him up. And he spent the rest of the day beating Caspian for it and even all these years later, he's never admitted to doing it."

Louise laughed sadly as she replied, "That's because he _didn't_ do it."

"What?"

"The day I went missing, the four of you were off on some raid and I was wandering around the camp by myself. There was…a man…I didn't know at the time…but I kind of did know that he was like you, Immortal. He beat me up, he hit me, and choked me, and tore my clothes and tried to drown me."

"Why?" Methos asked.

"I don't know. I'd never seen him before. He said that I was _his_ property, and that he would come after me, any time that he wanted to. I never told Kronos because I really didn't think that he would come back."

"Weren't you scared?"

"Out of my mind…and I had a couple of nightmares afterwards…but for the longest time I didn't give it any thought, until _that_ night. I saw him again, but I guess he was too far away for any of you guys to feel his quickening. He had another man with him, and he picked me up and hit me over the head and as I went into unconsciousness, I remember him stuffing something in my mouth so I couldn't scream. And _that's_ why when you all woke up the next day, I was gone."

Even for Methos, who had been Death on a horse and killed 10,000 and been the monster that mothers warned their children about; her account of what had happened was nothing short of stomach churning and he felt like he was going to be sick.

"Does Kronos know?"

"Oh no," she shook her head, "No, I never told him. You know how much he worries about me as it is, no, I couldn't tell him that."

"So what happened?"

"Well, I was his slave for about five years, and then I died, and became Immortal, and not long after that, I escaped. But you know, every single day that I served him, he told me that I was his property, and he owned me, and if I ever tried to escape he would hunt me down and kill me."

Methos tried desperately to push from his mind the memories of how many masters had said the exact same thing to him when he was young.

"I'm sorry," Louise said, "I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's not that," Methos said, "I just can't believe how much you two have not told each other in all the time you've been married. Even if it _is_ Kronos, I can't imagine that's easy hiding so much from him."

"Well you know, your brother, he's very…he's a real…" she tried to find the right word, "He's a survivor, Methos."

Methos shook his head, "No…that would be me. Kronos is the fighter."

"Well he's that too…but you know, he does not do very well when something happens to somebody close to him."

"I remember," Methos said, "I remember how…"

"Berserk?" Louise offered.

"Yes, he would get after a battle when we were overpowered. Sometimes I thought he would flat out lose his mind," Methos told her, "I'm sure for part of his life, he did."

"The part where you two didn't see each other for 2000 years?"

"Well," Methos replied, "It wasn't quite that long…but it was a long time before I was sure I could trust him not to come for my head…so over the years I'd try and stay away from him as much as possible."

"But didn't your brothers tell you how he was doing?" Louise asked.

"We didn't keep too close in contact for a few hundred years," Methos confessed, "Anytime they did have a run-in with Kronos, I was always over on the other side of the world."

"Running?"

"Just trying to survive," Methos said, "Incase your husband hasn't told you, it's what I do best."

"Um…" Louise's gaze dropped to the floor again, as though she was ashamed of what she was about to say, "Methos?"

"What is it?"

"The man who…I served after he kidnapped me…" she said as she dared herself to look up at him again, "He found me again, about a hundred years ago…Kronos was at work, and I was alone for the day, and he found me, and he pinned me down in the front yard and he…did just about everything imaginable to me, again. I don't remember if I finally died from the ordeal, or if I just passed out from the pain and the blood loss…but when I woke up, it was the next morning and Kronos had found me and…he'd taken me inside and undressed me and cleaned me up…and I didn't tell him then either what happened. But I was…I was so scared….thousands of years pass, and he found me. On the other side of the world, with a different appearance, a new name, a new identity…he found me…and he said that he would come back again and find me."

"And you didn't tell Kronos any of that either," Methos commented, forcing himself not to give in to the urge to vomit from what he'd just heard.

She shook her head sadly, "I never told him, I can't ever tell him. I never could tell anybody about it…until now…until you…because I know I can trust you."

* * *

Louise had mentally exhausted herself that night and had turned in early, about three hours before the sun was supposed to come up. Except that the sun wouldn't come up that morning and she knew it, because the storm had never stopped. The thunder ceased for a few hours but the rain continued to pour down; and that was fine with Louise because it seemed to fit how she felt. She returned to her bedroom and slipped into bed alongside her husband. The dear bastard, he was still asleep and without a care in the world at the moment. Louise pressed up against him for a moment and wrapped her arms around him, hoping that it would do something about the horrible feeling that she'd been railing against for the last few weeks; an undying feeling that the world as she knew it was getting ready to close in around her.

She didn't remember falling asleep, all she remembered was Kronos shaking her shoulder and calling her name to wake her up at 5 in the morning. He had the lights on in the room and was standing over her for something, but she was too tired to give much thought to it.

Forcing herself awake for a moment, she asked Kronos what it was that he wanted. He asked for her arm and she offered her left one.

"I'm really not in the mood for any of your games, you know that don't you?" she asked tiredly.

She felt something slip around her wrist. Opening her eyes she saw a solid gold chain bracelet contrasting with her blackened flesh. She looked up at her husband and she wanted to call him every name in the book. So this was what he went out of town for the other day and couldn't take her along with him. And on the inside she saw a small engraftment, and when she read it, it was too much.

Kronos had anticipated her reacting to it to be better than this. Instead she covered her eyes with her other hand and started crying.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he knelt down beside her, "You don't like it. I'm sorry, Louise, you know I'm not very good with these things."

"It's not that," she replied as she looked at it, and then to him, "I just realized how lucky I am to have someone like you around after all these years."

She pushed herself up onto her knees and threw her arms around him and didn't want to let go.

"Where else would I be?" he asked her.

She didn't answer him. Instead she just held close to him for a minute and then said, "Kronos, do you remember when we got married? And you said that you'd always love me, do you remember that?"

"Of course I do."

"Well, did you mean it?" she asked.

"You know I did. Louise, you know my entire life history and for some reason I can't figure out, you stayed regardless. I'd like to think that after that there is nothing that you could ever do that I wouldn't love you."

"But do you know as much, Kronos?" she asked, "Do you just think, or do you know? I've got to know, you have to be sure about it."

"Of course I am, Louise."

"That's good," she replied, "It's been so long since I'd heard it…I just…needed to hear it again and be sure."

"Louise, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, it's just that I know that over the years I've been absolutely horrible to know…and a lot of times, I meant it. But I still appreciate everything you've done for me, you don't know how much it all meant to know there was somebody I could trust with my life. As long as I've been alive, that was never a possibility," she told him, "I only had myself to rely on, and that way there was less risk of somebody turning on me, but it did tend to get pretty tired after a while, everywhere I went, everything I did, it was just me. That's not how people are supposed to live, not even Immortals, and if I hadn't found you…or rather you hadn't come to my room, I'd still be alone, and I know it."

* * *

"You're what?" Methos asked when Kronos broke the news to him that evening when it was just the two of them alone in the bedroom.

"I'm thinking of taking Louise back home," Kronos repeated as he dug the suitcase out from under the bed, "I don't know what it is but something's happening to her out here. I knew she was having problems before but she's just getting worse out here, and I don't know why. But I don't think it's a good idea to keep her out here."

"You can't do that, Kronos, she's only going to get worse when you get back," Methos told him.

"And how would you know?" Kronos asked.

"Kronos, Louise is not like you, she can't be by herself, she can't go thousands of years not telling anybody what's going on. She can't do it, Kronos, she's not you."

"I know that," Kronos responded as he turned away from Methos and headed over to the other side of the room.

"I don't think you do," Methos replied, "Kronos, I know what happened to Louise."

Kronos stopped in his tracks and even with his back to his brother, Methos could see the tension growing in his back. Kronos turned back around and faced Methos with a look of shock and disbelief on his face. "What are you saying?"

"I know about the accident that she had, when the boiler exploded on the boat," Methos said, "Ever since you came here, she's been coming to me in the night and telling me about what's happened. For some reason, she trusts me not to tell you, and up till now I've kept her secret, but now I don't know what the point is. I think you have a right to know what's going on, especially where her wellbeing is concerned."

"I don't believe this," Kronos said.

"She needed somebody to tell about what happened, and she said she could trust me," Methos explained, "But she can't figure out why among your own family you've tried so hard to hide what happened to her. And I have to agree with her, Kronos, I don't understand it. Now, I'm going to assume that it's _not_ because you're ashamed of her for what happened, am I right?"

"It's not that at all!" Kronos replied bitterly, full of disgust as it hit him what had happened.

"Then what is it?" Methos asked, "Kronos, I can understand not telling other people but why didn't you tell _us_? We would've understood."

Now Kronos looked sick, and Methos couldn't understand why this was so difficult for his brother to face, or for that matter why it was so hard for him to explain.

"Louise has every reason in the world to hate me for what's happened, and I know she does but every damn day she manages to restrain herself from it. Well I'm sick of it, after everything that's gone on, I don't _want_ her to be pleasant about it, I want her screaming, damning me for what I did."

"What're you talking about?" Methos asked, "You're the only reason she's still alive after all this time."

"I'm also the reason she is what she is," Kronos replied, "Everything that she's become is my fault."

"I don't know what you mean," Methos said, "I understand that you became quite possessive over her wellbeing, considering how long you had to do everything for her it's not completely unreasonable."

"Methos," Kronos seemed to be losing a fight for his own sanity as he struggled to explain, "You don't understand, it's not that."

"The fact that you two are still on as good of terms as you are without either trying for the other's head, that tells me that something must have gone right," Methos said.

"And so much could have been avoided," Kronos added.

"What are you talking about?"

Kronos looked at his brother with a pained look in his eyes like a dog that had been beaten.

"Methos, I made Louise go on that steamboat. The whole time we were heading down to the docks, she said that she didn't want to go but I didn't listen. It's my fault what happened to her!"

"Kronos, you couldn't have known she'd go to the boiler room."

"I should've known as much. She didn't want to go in the first place, she wasn't going to stay with me, she wasn't going to stay on the front deck with the rest of the passengers. It makes sense she'd go somewhere she could be as close to alone as possible and on a ship, that is the boiler room because the only people down there are workers, and they're paid to shovel coal, not to talk."

"Still, you couldn't have known that the boiler would've exploded," Methos replied.

"But if I hadn't made her go in the first place, there wouldn't have been an explosion for her to be caught in, her arm wouldn't have been crippled and she wouldn't have had to go through 12 years of her life completely helpless."

"Kronos…"

Methos looked past his brother and to the doorway. Louise hadn't been far enough away for her quickening to go unnoticed, and now she stood in the doorway to the bedroom listening to her husband's whole tirade.

"That's the reason she is the way she is, because of me, I know it, I've always known it!" Kronos told him.

"So that's it!"

He turned around and saw his wife standing at the entrance to the room, looking at him. She took another step forward, "So that's what this whole thing's been about."

"Louise," he said gravely as he walked over to her, "I am _so_ sorry, I didn't mean for anything to happen."

Louise put her arms around him and held him tight against her body, "I know, dear, I know."

Now it was out. The secret that Kronos had been keeping from his wife for over a hundred years was finally known, and now that the truth was out, the damage was done. Louise tightened her grip on Kronos as the emotional dam in him burst, and he tried to break away from her hold.

"I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry, I didn't want any of this to happen."

"It's alright, I know," Louise told him. She looked across the room to her brother-in-law and said calmly, "Methos, I'd like to speak to my husband alone for a while, so if you wouldn't mind…"

Methos nodded in agreement and headed for the door, closing it behind him. When he'd gotten out into the hallway, he felt like he'd just come from witnessing a natural disaster. He didn't know what to think or how to react. He'd seen Kronos upset plenty of times before, but never like that, and his brother rarely had an emotional reaction like that towards anything. But, Methos wondered, how must it have felt for Kronos for over 100 years, thinking he was responsible for his wife's misfortune, and telling no one?

* * *

Methos' heart rested appropriately in his throat as he counted the hours while waiting to see if Louise would be coming down tonight to speak with him. She had been upstairs with her husband doing God knew what to calm Kronos down for several hours. He hadn't said a word of anything to Caspian or Silas except for explaining about the boiler explosion and all the trouble the two had gone through over the years as a direct result of it.

He watched the clock on the wall, almost midnight. All had been quiet for hours, and his brothers had retired for the night. All he could do now was wait, and it was the waiting that about drove him out of his mind. Finally when he heard the clock strike 12 times, he heard somebody coming down the stairs. Louise appeared, dressed again in her nightgown, and this time she made no attempt to hide her deformity, nor was she making any attempt to sneak around this time.

"Well this has certainly been an unusual day," Louise said.

"How is Kronos?" Methos asked.

"Sleeping if you'll excuse the phrase, like an angel…I made him swallow some of those pills, he should be conked out until morning."

"And then what?" Methos asked, "Are you going to go back?"

"I'm not," Louise answered, "And I have a good idea where I don't go, Kronos isn't going either."

"I don't think I've ever seen my brother that upset before," Methos commented.

"I had no idea he blamed himself for what happened to me. How does a supposedly intelligent person come around to that kind of thinking?"

"I have a hard time understanding it myself. Steamboats blew up all the time in those days and it was never anybody's fault. He blames himself," Methos said, "Because he knew you didn't want you to go and he made you get on the boat anyway."

"He had no way of knowing," Louise told him.

"I guess we just chalk it up to another tragedy in the history of mankind," Methos said.

"Maybe not," Louise said, "Kronos isn't to blame for what happened to me that day…but it wasn't by pure bad luck that that boiler blew up."

"What do you mean?"

Now Louise was starting to resemble how Kronos looked during his own confession. "Well, I haven't really been too honest with anybody lately," she told Methos, "I told Kronos that I wanted to come out here and finally meet all of you…but that was a lie." She laughed nervously before continuing, "I'm glad that I did get to finally meet you guys, but I had another reason for coming out here."

The gears were starting to turn in Methos' head. "The reason you kept disappearing early in the morning when Kronos was asleep? Something you made sure of by drugging him every night?"

She nodded. "I've been looking for somebody, and I've found him."

"Who?"

"That day that I was on the boiler deck," Louise explained, "I was talking to the men who worked down there for a while, and then I went back on the boat's deck and looked around for a bit. Then I decided to go back down and visit with the workers again…but when I went back down, there was another Immortal down there. He must have been hiding out for the day where we wouldn't have found him. He had a bomb in his hands, and he dropped it before anybody could spot it and got out of there. And almost immediately after he dropped it, it went off and that's what caused the boiler to explode."

Methos couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Somebody blew it up on purpose?"

"Yes…I don't really know if his intention was just to blow the boiler, but that's what happened and just about everybody died…and he got away. And…I found out a couple of months ago that he was still alive, and that he was in the town right near here."

"Who is it?" Methos asked.

"When I first knew him, his name was Amahté, it means 'to have power over'…he was my master after he stole me from Kronos. I don't know for certain, but I think he might have known Kronos and I were on that boat that day. But I don't know, that bomb that he set could have been meant for anybody, all I know is I'm the only one who's had to live with the suffering. I suppose in his own way he was marking me, declaring once again that I was his property. It made it easier for him to find me a few years later when he came to our home and raped me and beat me. And when he did that, he reminded me again that I could never escape him. I know it was childish but that's part of why we were always on the move from one place to another, I thought it would make it harder for him to find me again."

"And he's still alive."

"Yes, only now he goes by a new name…Harlan Kruger, he's a…to my understanding, a big businessman, a…" she tried to think of the word, "Entrepreneur I suppose you call them. He knows what he wants and he makes sure he gets it at any cost. That's what he's always done."

"And that's why you've been staying up nights the last few weeks," Methos realized.

"Yes, as I said, it all goes toward planning the perfect murder…and I finally figured it out. I know how I'm going to put an end to this once and for all."

Methos was almost afraid to ask. "How?"

"20 sticks of dynamite's worth…one alone is considered enough to blow a person apart. But I'm not gambling on this."

"You set a bomb?" Methos couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Bright boy…yes, that's why I've been going into town while we've been staying here. It's much closer to where he is than where we live, and I've had to settle the last few details to make sure everything works out perfectly when the bomb goes off."

"When?" Methos asked.

"I had planned for the day after tomorrow," Louise said, "It's the night he works late, alone, nobody else will be there, nobody will know anything, and nobody else should get hurt. And no, I never told Kronos any of it, and I still haven't."

"Louise, don't you think this is carrying things a bit too far?"

She shook her head, "There's no point in telling him now."

"But how…" Methos wasn't even sure what to say, "How did you…"

"I've spent many years watching my husband work, and during that time I've seen him make more than a couple of high power explosive devices. You might say I learn from the master."

This all seemed surreal to Methos, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You really plan to go through with this?" Methos asked.

She nodded, "I have to, he's haunted me since almost the beginning of my life, he's followed me from one corner of the earth to the other. It's not going to stop…I'll never have my life back…until he's dead…and as long as he's alive, and I can't be honest with Kronos, he'll never have any peace other as long as he's with me…and he's not going to leave me. I wish he would, I hoped he would, but this morning, he gave me this!" she held up her wrist and showed him the bracelet, "He gave me this, and he had it engraved, 'To my wife, who I'll love forever', he's not going to leave me, and as long as that man's alive, neither one of us are ever going to have any peace in our lives. Don't you see, Methos? I have no choice; I _have_ to do it, for both our sakes."

* * *

It was with great unease that Methos went to sleep early that morning. His stomach was tied up in big knots, and he felt sick after listening to everything that Louise had to say. He knew that she had confided in him to keep what she said a secret from Kronos, but he just couldn't take it anymore. First thing the next morning, he had decided, he was going to tell Kronos what Louise was going to do, and with any luck, he would stop her before she headed out to confront that man, whatever he called himself.

Methos didn't know when he finally got to sleep, but he guessed it must have been near 3 in the morning. When he finally awoke, it was still dark out, but it was quiet outside and the rain had stopped. As dark as everything was, it looked as though Methos had never been to sleep. He reached for his clock but it was too dark to see it so he turned on the lamp by his bed. Only the light didn't come on. The storm must've taken the power out, he thought as he fumbled around for the clock. Finally he found it, and pressing the button on top set off a light to shine on the numbers to see what time it was.

He couldn't believe what he saw, 9 in the morning, how had he slept for so long? Throwing back the covers, he got out of bed, got dressed in the dark and went across the hall to Kronos' bedroom. The whole house was dark and he was certain then that it was because of the storm. Opening the door, he stepped in, went over to the bed and shook Kronos to wake him up.

"What is it?" Kronos asked.

"I need to talk to you, where's Louise?"

"What're you talking about?" Kronos asked, "She's…" then he sat up and saw that the other side of the bed was empty, and Louise's nightgown was slung over the bedpost. "What's going on here?"

"That's what I want to know," Methos said.

"Why is it so bloody dark in here?" Kronos asked.

"I don't know, the power lines must be down," Methos replied.

"Well it's not just here," they both heard.

Turning to the doorway they saw Caspian step into the room.

"What's going on?" Methos asked.

"I don't know but it's not just us…the whole power's out for ten square miles."

"That's one hell of a blackout," Methos commented.

"That or it was that bad of a storm," Kronos replied as Caspian left the room, "Now what's going on here? What was it you needed to talk to me about?"

"It's about Louise."

"Well where is she?" Kronos asked.

"I don't know, but that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Kronos grumbled something as he got out of bed and quickly dressed, "What in the hell is going on, Methos?"

"Last night, Louise told me about something that she had planned to do tonight, and I thought you deserved to know."

"Deserved to know what?" Kronos asked, "What time is it?"

"It's after 9 in the morning."

"Again? I've never slept this late before in my life."

"I know what you mean, I…" Methos stopped as he started to reply. A thought registered in his mind.

Kronos noticed the silence and he turned back to his brother, "You what?"

Methos stepped over to the nightstand and started rummaging through the things on top of it. "Where the hell is that pill bottle she brought back the other day?"

Now Kronos was certain Methos had lost his mind. He was rambling on about something, completely incoherently, something of which made no sense any way he listened to it.

Methos couldn't find the white pill bottle that Louise had brought back, and another idea building up in his mind, he went over to the wastebasket at the corner of the room and found the empty pill bottle amongst all the other garbage.

"Dammit!"

"Methos, what's wrong?" Kronos demanded to know.

"She did it! She drugged us all so that we'd all be asleep and we couldn't stop her. Kronos, Louise told me last night that there was an Immortal on the steamboat with you, who had a bomb, who blew up the boiler deck and that's why she is the way she is. She said that the man who set the bomb, was the same man who kidnapped her from our camp 4000 years ago. She didn't leave you, she was kidnapped, and kept, and tortured, and raped and beaten. That's when she became Immortal, and when she escaped, the man who owned her told her that he was going to track her down and kill her. He's the one who choked her and dumped her body near the river, he's the one who nearly killed her after the explosion when you found her in the yard, and he is here now. She said that he's in the next town and she knew where he was, and she told me that she was going to kill him once and for all. And now she's gone and she's probably already on her way there as we speak."

"On her way where?" Kronos demanded to know.

"Kronos!" Caspian came rushing back into the room.

"What is it now?"

"You've got to see this, come on!" Caspian jerked Kronos out of the room and the three men went down the hall, up the stairs leading to the attic and went over to the attic window from which they could see the town.

"Caspian, have you finally lost your mind?" Kronos demanded to know, "What the hell is going on?"

"Look out there!"

Kronos looked to where Caspian was pointing, and he saw off in the distance a high rise that the top 10 floors or so were on fire.

"Oh my God," Methos said as he took in the sight, "That must be where she went to kill him."

Kronos pushed past the other two and was down the stairs in a heartbeat, with Methos and Caspian following behind him. Kronos returned to their bedroom to collect his sword and when he did, he made another horrifying discovery and he screamed and swore like Methos had never heard in his life.

"Kronos, now what's wrong?"

And when he stepped into the room, he saw the answer. Kronos had kept both his and Louise's swords side by side against the wall, and both swords were still there.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's note: Well here we are at the end finally. I would like to thank all the readers who have kept an interest in this latest story even if they had nothing to say regarding it. And once again, much thanks to Shadow3418 for her continuous support and feedback on every chapter. And now, onto the finale.

"Louise said that she had built a bomb that had the explosion capacity of 20 sticks of dynamite," Methos told Kronos as they hurried to the scene, "If…if that's what's happened, is this normal?"

"Dynamite alone wouldn't have the building burning like that," Kronos replied as they saw the fire continue to burn, "I can't believe that she had this all planned out and she didn't say anything."

Taking a back road into civilization they had saved themselves the trouble of encountering all the traffic that had stopped moving when the power went out and so had all the lights on the streets. As they neared the high rise, Methos noted that they were the first ones there. There were no firemen, no paramedics, no police, nothing.

"The power's out for the whole damn town, it makes sense the phone lines would be down as well," Caspian noted as he pressed down on the accelerator, "And with the roads backed up like that, it'll take them plenty long to get anything over here not by way of helicopter."

Then they were at the scene, less than 20 feet away from a 700 foot high rise with the top 10 stories burning up and the fire was spreading quickly. All the windows on the top floors had been blown out and it looked like the fire could continue all the way to the bottom of the building. As they got out of the car and ran over to the lot the building was on, Kronos looked up at the top windows and saw the flames shooting outward.

"Dear God, she _can't_ be up there," he said.

Methos felt a low quickening nearby. "No, she's not up _there_."

They inched along carefully around the base of the building, careful not to get hit by the heavy debris that was falling out of the windows above. The surrounding area was completely black and it was impossible to tell what was what. But then, Methos heard something…a low groaning from somewhere nearby. And then, they saw it. A body lay in the rubble next to the building. Kronos ran over to Louise and saw she was unconscious. Her skin was black from the soot and ash of the debris burning, most of her jacket had been burnt past recognition and the sleeves had burnt off up to the elbows, her quickening was very low, to the point that he almost couldn't feel her at all.

"Is she alive?" Methos asked.

"Barely," Kronos replied as he picked her up out of the rubble.

Caspian took off his jacket and handed it to Kronos. "Put that on her, then we better get the hell out of here, otherwise we're going to have to answer a lot of questions that we can't account for."

Kronos wrapped Louise in the jacket and picked her up and they rushed back to the car. Kronos laid Louise out in the backseat and stayed with her. Caspian got back in the driver's seat and started the ignition; Methos heard the sirens off in the distance and he knew it wouldn't be long before the authorities were all over this. He jumped into the passenger side, slammed the door behind him and told Caspian, "Drive like hell."

He backed the car out of there and they sped away, narrowly escaping being spotted by the police or the firemen by about a good three minutes.

* * *

When they got back to the house, the power was still out so it was by candlelight that Kronos carefully set to work in undressing his wife on the bathroom floor.

"I still don't know why we can't bring up one of the kerosene lamps, they put out a lot more light," Methos said as he watched.

"Methos, put yourself in her place," Kronos said, "After being caught in two explosions, set on fire and severely burnt, would you want to hear the screaming and rattling of an old kerosene lantern?" He looked up at his brother who had become very quiet, "And you're supposed to be the smart one around here."

"What do you make of it so far?" Methos asked.

"Well, her flesh had pretty much healed from the burn when we found her, her hair's been singed a few inches shorter on one side, other than that I'd say she had quite a narrow escape," Kronos told him.

"What narrow escape?" Methos asked, "Clearly she was caught in the fire when it broke out, and the only way out was going through the window and dropping 200 feet."

"It beats the hell out of the alternative, doesn't it?"

"We're still waiting to hear what the extent of all the damage is," Methos said, "The phones are up again, Caspian's talking to somebody who was down there to find out what they know yet."

When Kronos slipped Louise out of the last of her clothes, he reached over and turned on the taps to the bathtub and let it start to fill up.

"I still can't believe the whole time this was going on that I had absolutely no idea," he said, "I never would've even thought Louise capable of pulling something like this."

"That just says how desperate she was for it to end," Methos replied.

"Well the verdict's in!" Caspian bellowed as he came up the stairs.

"What happened?" Methos asked.

"They said that the fire exceeded in burning past 1700 degrees Fahrenheit, nothing on any of the top floors was spared from either the explosion or the flames."

"Did they find anybody up there?" Kronos asked.

"Yes, and no…they found no body but in the remains they found a human finger. DNA matched it to a man who is identified by his records as Harlan Kruger. They found no remains of anybody else, the building was empty, he was the only one there."

"And since the fire was so hot it probably incinerated any proof that Louise was even there," Methos realized, "And with the blackout, their surveillance cameras wouldn't have picked her up either, so she's in the clear. She knew _exactly_ what she was doing."

"I always knew she was too smart for her own good," Kronos commented, "But I _never_ thought it would come to something like this."

* * *

It had now been almost an hour since they'd found Louise's body at the scene and still she hadn't awoken. Kronos speculated that it was proof of how hard she had been hit by the explosion and the 70 story drop. Methos however, chalked it up to all the months of stress and deceit that had gone on for everything to be pulled off as it was. Whatever the reason, she remained unconscious still and Kronos was very careful in lowering her into the tub and washing her. Her skin was blackened from the fire and the ash of what burnt had darkened her hair as well. Despite it all she looked, as both men noted, very peaceful now that it was all over.

"I still can't believe," Kronos commented as he scrubbed the soot off her flesh, "That she never told me, about any of it."

"She didn't want you to know," Methos told him, "She knew how you'd react. That was something she wanted to avoid altogether for as long as it could be helped."

The lights in the ceiling came on and they realized the blackout was over.

"About time," Methos said as he started putting out the candles.

"The part that I can't get over," Kronos said, "Is that she had to have known the risks involved. She _had_ to have known there was a chance that she wouldn't come out of it alive. That the bomb might have blown her up as well."

"I'm sure she was well aware of the fact," Methos responded, "Which is probably why she made sure we couldn't stop her or follow after her. She said in a few days, nothing would matter anymore, she probably anticipated she might be killed, and that's why she didn't tell you. She probably wanted the last thing she remembered about you was that you still loved her, not that you were upset with her or angry at her."

Kronos said nothing in response and continued to lightly scrub the dirt and debris off his wife. Methos knelt down beside Kronos and he noticed something.

"Kronos."

"What?"

"Look!"

Kronos looked up, and he saw what Methos had seen. Blackness remained on Louise's left arm, but only in small streaks now instead of totally coating the flesh as it had done so for over 100 years. Kronos grabbed her left hand and scrubbed it off again, and the color came off.

"I don't believe it," was all he could say.

An idea formed in Methos' mind and he went over to where Kronos had discarded her clothes. He picked up her jacket and looked it over and came to a realization.

"The right sleeve was only burnt off at the cuff, but the left one was burnt off all the way up to the elbow…that must be why she made the bomb to ignite into such a high temperature, of all the things you ever tried to remove the color from her arm, did you ever try burning the flesh off?"

Kronos shook his head, "She'd been put through enough hell already, and if it didn't work…anyway, after the explosion she was terrified about being around fire at all…how well would that register in her mind that her husband was trying to give her the Joan of Arc treatment?"

"So she sought to kill two birds with one stone. The initial explosion killed Harlan, and when the fire broke out, she didn't dive out the window right away. She stayed in the midst of it and let the fire burn her arm until all the old skin was gone. That must have been when she went out the window," Methos concluded.

"But it worked, after all this time, finally something worked, thank God," Kronos said with great relief.

"Maybe now, things can get back to…well, close to normal, for the two of you," Methos said.

"I hope so."

* * *

Louise felt the sheets underneath and above her body, and she knew that she was no longer on the pavement next to a burning building, but back in bed. In bed? She remembered the explosion and started to question if she had survived. Opening her eyes, she turned over on her side and saw Caspian staring back at her.

"So this is hell," she said, "It's worse than I thought."

"You're not dead yet," he told her, "However, the man you set that bomb for is."

Her eyes started to perk up when she heard that. "He's dead? Are you sure?"

"All that was found of him that could be identified was a finger, everything else was either burnt up or blown to bits."

"Thank God," Louise said as she hit her head back against the pillows, "And I'm still alive?"

"Very much so," Caspian answered.

"Good…" she looked around the room through one eye and realized her husband wasn't around, "Where's Kronos?"

"Right now he's unconscious."

"What?" she laughed, "What do you mean?"

Caspian pulled down the covers and she saw that for the first time in well over 100 years, the skin on her left arm was its regular color again.

"Oh my God," she said as she realized it had been a success.

"He saw that and lasted about five minutes before he passed out," Caspian explained, "So now he's across the hall in the bedroom doing a good impression of a corpse."

"I see," Louise said as she pulled the covers back up, "Now perhaps you could explain to me what happened to my clothes."

"Burnt up, he threw them out."

Louise glanced under the sheets again and saw she was as naked as the day she was born, "Somehow, I'm not surprised. Well, he's taking it better than I thought he would."

"Speaking of which," Methos said as he entered the room, "Everything's out in the open now."

"Tell me about it," Louise said as she looked under the sheet again.

Caspian left the room and Methos went over to the bed, "How're you feeling, Louise?"

"I'm good," she held up her arm to show him, "Looks like the plan worked."

"It worked alright, Kruger's dead, everything's burnt up, and there's no way anybody can put you at the scene of the crime. You should be thankful for that."

"Don't think I'm not," she replied, "I don't mind so much dying for what I believe in but if they tried to put me in jail for that little stunt, they'd be in for quite a surprise. Methos."

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry about what I did…I mean knocking all of you guys out, but I had to make sure that nothing and nobody tried to stop me. I had to do it, Methos, you know that, don't you?"

"It's not I you need to convince," Methos said, "Kronos is doing alright but I think he's still a bit in the dark about the whole thing."

"I suspected as much," Louise said, "I have a lot to answer for. I know that. I just wanted a few good days with my husband before it all had to come to an end."

"I think he'll understand, Louise," Methos told her, "It just all came out at once and it's a lot for him to take in."

"I know," she nodded, "But I figured once I set off that bomb…that he'd never…it sounds ridiculous given all that he's done, but he can overlook his own sins. I'm not so sure about my own."

Methos knelt down beside her and hugged her. He knew he ought to say something assuring to her but he knew soon it would all come out from his brother instead.

"But you know something, Methos?" Louise asked, "I don't feel guilty…" she smiled and let out a nervous laugh, "Not one bit."

* * *

That night when Kronos finally worked up the nerve to see his wife again, he walked into the bedroom and the lights were still on, and she was still up. Now she was dressed for bed in her nightgown, and she sat on the bed watching him, her eyes watching him everywhere he moved.

"How do I look?" she finally asked him.

He looked at her for a minute and had to take in a breath before he could answer. "Beautiful."

"Because I'm normal again?" she asked.

"Because you're well now. How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she answered, "How about you?"

"Same," he replied as he started undressing, "You're looking a lot better."

"I know," she nodded, "Hard to believe. Maybe if I'd stayed on the Hindenburg when it blew up instead of jumping out the window, I could've solved this particular problem," she held up her arm, "60 years sooner. It's strange, Immortals are supposed to recover from almost anything immediately...but then again, of all the things they go through, I don't suppose too many of them were caught in a boiler explosion...and even if they were, probably not too many of them anticipated standing around in 2000 degree flames to fix the problem."

"The important thing now is that it's done, you're back to normal, you're alright, and that bastard is dead," Kronos said.

"That's the most important part," Louise told him, "That he's dead, and he can't come after me anymore…"

Kronos slipped into bed beside her and asked her, "Why didn't you tell me what was going on? I could've helped you."

She looked at him that was indecisive about answering, and it was then that it hit Kronos.

"Except you didn't need my help," he said, "That's what you've been trying to tell me all along, and I didn't listen."

"I wanted you to understand that I didn't need you doing everything for me anymore, always protecting me, always fighting my battles. I'm a grown woman, I can take care of myself, and I can certainly stand alone in my own fights."

"Only it wasn't a fight," Kronos said, "It was a murder."

"Murder? It was an execution, justice, 4000 years overdue, finally paid out," Louise explained, "The only time that he came after me was when I was with you. That gave me reason to believe that he was looking for you to come fight him. And I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of getting anything he wanted."

"I still can't believe how close I came to losing you," Kronos told her.

"There wasn't any real risk to it, the bomb was far enough away that it would blow him up, but the initial blast wouldn't hit me. I almost went out the window when it went off and the whole building started to shake, but there was no real chance that it would blow me up."

"But there was always a chance something could go wrong," he said.

"Of course there was…and if I was going to die, I wanted us to end on good terms. That's another reason why I didn't tell you anything, I didn't want to die and the last memories I had of you were you being mad at me. We've certainly gone through enough of that in our marriage."

He nodded as he recalled all too well the many nights that they spent practically at each other's throats.

"And then this morning, right before the bomb went off, I got to thinking…we've been married long enough that you should understand," Louise said, "You've known from the beginning what I was like. And I decided we'd been married long enough that, it should've made sense to you once you found out what was going on, why I did what I did."

"I think I understand it," Kronos told her, "I just don't ever want to go through this again."

"You and me both," Louise replied, "I suppose you know by now that I was lying when I said I wanted to meet your family."

"Anybody who would say a thing like that would _have_ to be lying," Kronos said.

"But I'm not sorry I did," she responded, "They've really changed over the years…I figure if we didn't kill each other 4000 years ago, then we should stand a good chance in hell of surviving each other now."

"Maybe."

That wasn't what Louise had expected to hear. "You're not saying that you're still think of packing it all in and going back home, are you?"

"I don't know."

"The war's over, Kronos, in 4000 years it's finally come to an end, we've spent most of our marriage running, either from the law or something else…I think it's time we stopped running and what more I think we ought to settle here with your brothers. That way it won't have to take another 50 years for us all to get together."

"I suppose you're right," he replied.

"There's nothing to cut us off from the rest of the world anymore," she told him, "No more hiding in shadows or in my case under 20 pounds of fox fur and long coats…a long time ago the sky was the only limit for us, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be again. Do you?"

He shook his head, "No."

"So you see, what I did may not exactly have been right because nobody else knew it, but because of it, everything's finally returning to normal for us," Louise told him.

He looked at her and said, "I knew when I married you that I was asking for trouble…I knew then that I was looking towards a life stuck with somebody who was a lot like myself…I just didn't know how much like me you were." He wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him, "And I love you, in spite of it all, I love you, I love you, I love you, I always did, and I always will."

"I suppose I must love you too," Louise replied, "After all this time and all the crap we've gone through together, I think I'm going to stay."

* * *

Methos crept out of his bed early the next morning and headed across the hall to Kronos' bedroom. They had been unusually quiet all night and he wanted to make sure everything was alright between the two. Pushing the door open, he looked in and despite the darkness that covered the room, he could see the two of them in bed curled up against each other. It was a scene that resembled the first time he walked in on them, except he noted that this time they both still had their clothes on. Both appeared to be in a deep and peaceful sleep, and he decided not to bother them.

Still, he couldn't resist inching his way into the room and alongside the bed to get a better look at them. He'd heard the saying many times about how something did an old man's heart good; most of the time he considered it to be another expression that somebody just pulled off the top of their head. But looking at his brother with his wife as they were, he was starting to think maybe there was something to it. It was a relief to Methos to see his brother as happy as he was now. He remembered for what seemed to be the longest time, when it was just the four of them and it seemed most days nothing could please Kronos and he always seemed to be treading the line of his last bit of patience.

Finding Louise again, and marrying her, had seemed to do something wonderful and unexplainable for his brother; and looking at them now, Methos couldn't help but notice how perfect they looked together. And yet something was wrong with the picture; they didn't look like a husband and wife, they looked more like a brother and sister. When they first found Louise, she and Kronos had been as different in every way as day and night. Now, there seemed to be fewer differences between the two; now with every passing day Louise was starting to bear a bit more resemblance to her husband, and now both appeared to be working on the same train of thought.

Looking back at it all now, Methos couldn't help but realize how much like Kronos her whole plan had been. The only difference was that Kronos had no ability to keep something amongst himself for too long; now that the four of them were together again, anytime he had an idea he had to let one of them know, as was how it had always been when they were together. But Louise had managed to take it one step further than her husband, and she had successfully kept everybody in the dark about what was going on until it was too late. Methos swore, if those two ever put their heads together on the same project, it could very easily mean the end for all civilization. Fortunately, he noted, things seemed to be going so well for them this century that, hopefully, there would be no need for that.

So, he thought as he drew the covers up on them both, a 4000 year old nightmare was finally at an end, an equally old mystery was finally solved, and hopefully now an almost 130 year old marriage could pick up again. With one last look at the two people lying in bed, Methos headed for the door, quietly shut it behind him, and headed back to his own room. Outside he could already hear the birds out and chirping, and though the last few days since the beginning of this visit, the weather had been heavy downpours and violent storms, he knew this was going to be a better day for everybody. At long last, everything seemed to be settling down, and though Methos certainly didn't want to jinx their luck, as he settled back in under the covers, he thought to himself how it looked like for once, nothing was going to go wrong.

The End.


End file.
